James' Pinewood Derby

Last Thursday was James' Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. James was given the car kit in January. We thought the Derby was going to be held the end of February, so there was no rush to start working on the car. I signed James up for a class at Lowes about how to make a Pinewood Derby car and they mentioned that they would demonstrate how to use a dremmel on the car as part of the class. When Rick took James to the class they learned that it had been held the day before and they had missed it. I tried to sign him up for another class (they had said that they held them every week) but that must have been the last one. Oh well.
Then the ward announced that February pack meeting was the Blue and Gold banquet. So we had either missed the pinewood derby or we had another month to prepare. So we waited longer. The only thing we did to prepare was draw a couple of preliminary designs and borrow Grandpa Simmons' jig saw and dremmel.

Angela was at the Library and found a book about making Pinewood derby cars. It had lots of pictures and instructions. We appreciated that alot. It was our first step in the right direction.

On Saturday before the big race, Rick started to work on the car with James. Forget the fancy shaped vehicles. That is too hard and takes too long. They made a simple wedge shape (cut diagonally from the top back down to the bottom front. Then James started to sand it. John and Dad also drilled holes in the top back to insert the weights to bring it up to the correct weight, and filled in the hole with some body putty that we borrowed from Grandpa. We only had an old postal scale so we were REALLY guessing how much weight to put in. They figured that they could add some "sinkers" into the bottom of the car if it weighed too little and drill holes out of the bottom of the car if it weighed too much. They also prepared the nails so they would be smooth where the plastic wheels would spin on them. Thank goodness we had saved all the left over weights, graphite etc. from making Lee and John's cars about 10 years earlier. That saved a lot of trips to the store.
Mom's job was to take that simple shape and help it turn into a good looking car (which is all Mom really cared about). We got some primer from Grandpa Simmons, and on Wednesday afternoon, Mom and James went to the store to get some fancy pinewood derby stickers. There was one set of stickers that had triangle shaped flames. That was obviously the choice. We got them and chose some spray paint that would make the flames show up (not blend into the background color). Silver!

The car weigh in was Wednesday night at 7:00 at the church. But Dad and John and everyone had other places they had to be so James and Mom gathered up all the pieces and the car with 1 coat of primer and walked with James over to the church.
When we got there, we saw all the completed cars getting weighed and being put in a special box to keep the cars until the big race day. When it was our turn to weigh in, we just set the nondescript wedge shaped piece of wood and the 4 nails and 4 wheels in a pile on the scale. It was too light, so they cut a weight (with 1/4 ounce sections) and gave us 14 grams (1/2 ounce) with sticky tape on the back and said we could stick that much weight onto the car and still be within weight.

On the way walking home, we delivered Scouting for Food grocery bags to the houses on our assigned route. When we got home, we kept painting the wood (setting the timer for 15 minutes so the paint would have time to dry).


Then when John and Dad got home, they helped James apply the graphite in all the places where things rub and they installed the nails into the existing slots for the axles (They made sure to only push the nails in and leave a gap between the car and the wheel the thickness of 3 business cards).


Then we put 2 of the kitchen table legs up on 2x4's to slope the table top, and they checked to see if the car would drive straight. Eventually they got it to go straight and we put hot glue in the slots to hold the nails in that exact position.



Last of all, we used grandpa's dremmel with a felt head to spin the wheels very fast on the axels to work in the graphite. Bed Time!





The next day, we were very careful with the car. We added all the stickers. We loved this part. It started looking very fancy. We also stuck the 1/2 ounce weight they gave us at weigh in on the back of the car. The car was ready by noon. We made sure to eat dinner early enough to get to the race early enough to weigh in.

Everything went smoothly. The track was very sophisticated with a computer to time each run. Each car ran 8 times. There were 26 "heats". James' car took first a few times, 2nd a few times and 3rd a few times. But never 4th. At the end of the race, his car was 4th fastest. The track owner's 2 boys cars took 1st and 2nd, and then hundredths of a second later another boy then thousandths of a second later, James'. James's award was The HOT ROD car. (I think because of all the flames it had on it). It was a fun experience.