Start Your Engines!!!!!!

Vrroooom, Vrrooom.....off they go!!! Last week was our Pinewood Derby!!! We handed out the supplies to the boys (and dads) in February to give them plenty of time to work on the cars. For us it always seems we start the beginning of April and spend every weekend until the Pinewood Derby getting things ready! For us (or should I say Chase and Rick) they have the sanding, polishing, and weight under control. Our issue (at least for the past two years), always seems to be the paint job! I got Chase some really cool stickers to go on his car, so he decided he wanted it to be orange to match the stickers. This year primer was not put on the car because of the disaster last year. The car was looking fabulous....painted perfectly and super shiny! Rick got out the steel wool, to buff it up. When we got home from church - the car had "stuff" all over it! Pieces of the wool had stuck to it. Crazy! How does this happen???? It WAS completely dry! After looking at it, it actually looked kind of cool. It looked like it had a little texture on it....so, we decided to leave it. Then Chase decided he wanted a few black speckles....a few turned into A LOT. So they put a little blue spray paint on it...and when all was said and done, the car wasn't really orange anymore! It looked cool, but since it wasn't orange, Chase didn't want to put the stickers on it. He just wanted it to be plain. With MUCH persuading, I still lost out, and the car went to the derby plain! We definitely weren't going to win for best looking car, so that meant we had to focus on the fastest car. :)Earlier that day, my scout ladies went and decorated. They did a fabulous job!!! Rick and I went early with a friend to set up the track and make sure it was ready to go. I got the cars all weighed in....it was fun to watch the boys (and their dads) rush to add more weights, and in some cases take weight out. Before they did the final weigh in, Rick and Chase lubed up the car real good, did any last minute adjustments and turned it in at a perfect 5 ounces exactly! Thanks to a good friend, I had a computer program set up where each car had a number and it organized the races, so everyone would race in each lane and against different cars. Before the races started we had a little buffet of food in the back, so people could just eat as they watched the races. IT WAS GREAT! Everyone pitched in and brought something. I thought it turned out perfect! I had a lot of help getting things ready to start. We wrote each car number on the board, then when their car raced, their time was put on the board. Once they ran 3 races we took the top 6 fastest cars and raced those the same way.We had 20 cars total, and after they all raced 3 times, we narrowed it down to the top 6. Then the top 3. (Can you tell which number keeps moving on????)And once we got the top three cars, they raced three more times until we had a winner!!!AND THE WINNER IS........YEAH CHASE!!!!! He won the Pinewood Derby!!!! He was so excited! I must admit, his car was pretty fast!!! He got third place last year, so his goal was to get second or first this year. The boys he beat were brothers. He actually just wanted to beat the boy on the left, because that is one of the boys who beat him last year. (we are not competitive at all :)Congratulations to all the boys! I love seeing all the cars! Everyone gets very creative with their designs. This year we had a banana, a rip stick, and a pickle (just to name a few). All the boys did fabulous and I hope they enjoyed the race. I think their favorite part was at the end when they got to "free race" whoever they wanted!