Tomorrow morning is the annual BSA Pinewood Derby. Since W. only joined Cub Scouts this past year, it will be our first derby; also since W. only joined Cub Scouts this past year, we had completely forgotten about the derby until one day last week when we received an email at home about the pre-derby workshop being held last Saturday. Unfortunately for us, we were not able to make the workshop, and we had given absolutely zero point zero thought to any actual design for W.’s derby. Until this past Tuesday night, this is what W.’s car looked like:

the derby kit

I felt pretty bad in not having done anything at all with the derby kit we received like 3 1/2 months ago; would it be OK to just bang some wheels on the block as-is and call it our derby entry? Probably not. Besides, being W.’s first derby I wanted to make sure we were doing it right. I had no idea how much work other kids were putting into their cars, but knew I did not want W.’s to look like it was made by an amateur (which of course, he is.) Thankfully, 10 years ago my in-laws had the foresight to present me with a scroll saw for Christmas; I ran out at lunch over to the scout store in Dayton to pick up everything I ever wanted to know about Pinwood Derby car plans, rules and regulations; and I was able to pick up a brand new Dremel tool on the way to work on Wednesday. By Friday afternoon, this is what W.’s car looked like:

The Green Machine

Now, however, I felt bad in that we didn’t start working on this sooner, since most of the work was done by myself, downstairs in my workshop late at night after W. was in bed. About the only involvement he had was in selecting the paint color, and applying the number 1 sticker to the car. He does think it’s a pretty cool car though, and even if we don’t win the derby for fastest car, we’ve got a shot at best-looking. Personally, I think we did a kick-ass job, considering I put this thing together from scratch while learning the rules about lengths and weight and how to polish the axles and lubricate with graphite… we’ll see how the races go tomorrow when they kick-off at 9:00 AM. Even if we win nothing, we both learned a lot in the process, and we’ll be all the more prepared for 2010.