The kids at church had their races tonight. It's amazing how far they've come since I did mine, right before they invented this whole "Wood" idea. ;)
It was computerized. I should have expected it, but it was still surprising to see. Typical track, but they had the whole thing timed by the laptop. It even calculated scale speed, and we did have one kid break the 200mph barrier. My son's self made entry didn't do that well, but then again it was his.
Now, why can't the girls do this?
My first derby car I whittled w/ a dull pen knife and painted w/ leftover red barn paint. It looked like something out of the Flintstones but it made the podium.
Second car was cut out on a band saw and shaped to perfection and painted high gloss black, even had numbers and decals.... it was a backmarker.
It was all fun.
Man, I remember the Pinewood Derby. I almost got disqualified one year for having box flares because they were not sure if they were legal. I think I still have my cars somewhere.
We had an unlimited pinewood class for the fathers, a guy showed up with a "JATO" setup. It was hilarious when it rolled uncontrollably across the finish line sideways and on fire.
I remember doing something similar in (junior) high school. We powered ours with little CO2 canisters, and ran them across the gym floor. Good fun.
My oldest son is in scouts and he took second place in his age group at Districts last year. I was pretty impressed with the extruded aluminum tracks and the digital timing systems. Craziest thing was my son's car ran two dead heats (timed to the 1/1000th of a second) before losing to the first place car.
This year we put a little more effort into the car, but it didn't quite make the podium.
Our church has a Bible club (AWANA) and all the boys and girls - 3rd through 6th grade get to make cars. Our last club had an adult class and allowed the parents and leaders to compete.
I made a Nike shoe box car and wore a 1957 Chevrolet T-shirt bought specifically for the race. Nobody got the shoe box reference.
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