District Pinewood Derby

Trophy and Car The District Pinewood Derby was held the last Saturday of March this year. Since #2 had finished in the top three at the pack races, he got to participate in districts for his third year in a row. Until two days before the districts, the car just sat in our carrying box. I took a little bit of the lead weight out of the car, since the districts use a scale that measures to 0.005 of an ounce and our pack just measures to 0.1 of an ounce. On Friday night, we added some more graphite to the wheels and #2 spent time spinning the wheels on our wheel polishing rig.

On race day, #2’s car “The Natural” was just one of 118 cars in the event. First race is typically against your pack mates and #2’s car won the heat and beat the first and second place cars from his pack. It looked like his car was pretty fast and when the standings went up, his car was in 13th place overall. The Natural won it’s second heat and moved up to 12th in the standings (running faster that the first heat). The Natural won the third heat too (running faster than the first two heats) and moved to 8th place overall and fourth fastest bear. The Natural won the fourth heat too, but we had to wait for the awards ceremony to tell where he might place. As the awards went on, we found out that he finished as the fastest bear in the derby (after the top three which included two bears) and got to take home a great trophy.

Sunday April 8, 2007   ·   Permalink