Ian's First Pinewood Derby

What a fun night! We weren't expecting much- we have a small troop and we found out just this past Sunday that it might be today- but it was just right. There were 4 scouts and the cub master's little boy. We hadn't spent much time on the car, Kevin and Ian had cut it down some and sanded it, so last night they painted it and that was pretty much it. I kept asking about weights, but Kevin said they didn't need them. The only other thing they did was add a tiny washer to each wheel between the wheel and car so there wasn't any friction with the wood. We got to the Derby and the other boys were "practicing" and their cars were pretty fast- one of the boys had added little weights to the entire bottom of his car. I had prepared myself to console Ian since I didn't think his car would do that well without the weight. Little did I know we had some kind of mojo going on and his car would win every heat he was in! A couple were close until the straight stretch at the end when his car would just pull ahead. It was so freaky! We even let the others check out our car after the races were done and they couldn't believe it either. On the way home Ian just kept exclaiming his amazement that he had won since he thought the other cars looked faster. He was very happy with his first Pinewood Derby experience- and so was Daddy! He got a little bit of "I told you so" on that one!