the derby

Tomorrow is a very big day. It's the pinewood derby. We take this race pretty serious around here. See, my father built me ...assisted me in the construction of... the Pack 343 winner back in 1978. Ever since that bar was set, we've expected nothing but victory from our cars. Matthew, Nicholas and I have put together a couple of cars for tomorrow's race and we have high hopes.

Green number 42 is Matthew's car for this year's race. It's a nice British racing green, but just by accident. He had to paint it with a brush because it was too cold outside to use the spray paint. He wanted it to be fluorescent green. I took it to work today to weigh it and its weight matches up perfectly with last year's car. That makes us a little nervous. We'd rather it be a little light, so we can add more weight at the race. The car is full of lead fishing weights and it would be a real pain to have to dig through the car to make weight. You never can tell what the scales are going to say.

Red number 42 is Nicholas' car. It has no weight added. It weighs about 2.5 oz. It's really too thin to risk digging out the middle to add lead. I'll add (not nicholas) lead golf club tape to the bottom before weigh in. Nicholas isn't old enough for scouts, so he'll race with me in the Dads' race after the main event.

Red number 8 is Matthew's car from last year. He didn't win the event (lowest sum of three races), but he did get the fastest time of the event. This was amazing given that we had to replace our illegal wheels with the BSA wheels right before the race.

This is the 1978 Pack 343 Chickasaw council winner. It didn't win in the council race at the scout show. The lame wooden track they used had a divet in it that caused my car to fall off track. A few notes about this car:

1. We had to remove the head in 1978 to make weight.

2. I think my brother Jay, or maybe it was Pat, used this car.

3. Jay had his own blue derby car. It was super thin, probably 1/2 to 3/4 inches thick. It was hollowed out from the top all around and then filled with BBs. On top of the BBs we poured glue and smoothed it out. Then the blue went on. I never saw it race, but I bet it was fast. By the way, I have no idea where it is. I'll post a picture if we ever find it.

4. If you could see the other side of this car, you would be looking into a bunch of empty ballast holes. It seems scales weren't so good in '78 and this car was way heavier than 5oz. Over the years we've had to remove BBs to make weight. There was a reason it was so fast back in 1978.

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