Sunday, February 22, 2009

Pinewood Derby

Chojuk is in Cub Scouts. He's a Wolf. But Cub Scouts is a friendly organization and doesn't exclude anyone. So everyone in our family participates.

The big event this time if year is the Pinewood Derby. Everyone starts with a block of wood and makes it into a car. The Nutty Papa was in charge of the style this year. He went with his brother and their boys to a friend's house to cut the body of the car. Last year we were rookies and made lots of mistakes. We learned our lesson and are smarter about it this yer.

Chojuk had a rough go of it last year with his car. So this year the Nutty Papa decided to turn the tables in his favor with a sleek wedge shaped car. From what I understand, Chojuk wasn't too thrilled with the design.

Last year decorating our cars was a last minute thing. I didn't want to do that this year. So we spent lots of time considering what we wanted. Chojuk wanted lightning. It reflects his current interest in tornadoes and weather.

For the Snugglebug, I chose Pokemon. He lives it. Breathes it. So I thought what better decorations than Pokemon? He stuck lots of little Pokemon stickers all over the body and I painted over them with Modge Podge. He loved it!

The Doodlebug is the easiest of them all. Pink. Girlie. She doesn't care as long as it's pink. So she painted her car pink and then I let her put stickers all over it too. She chose the Lil' Pet stickers and some sparkly purple hearts. She's such a girl!

We had the race on Saturday. The Snugglebug and Doodlebug raced in the "Me too" category. Chojuk raced against his fellow wolves. Each car races 4 times. They have it set up on a computer. It's all very scientific and I'm sure I don't understand all that is involved. But it's fair.

Here are the Me Too cars. The Snugglebug's is the yellow looking one with black window in the upper left corner. The Doodlebug's is next to it with the purple heart. I liked the yellow crayon too.

Here are the Wolf cars. The Nutty Papa called Chojuk's car "Black Lightning"... I think you can see why. The one in front of us was a real competitor. The Camo Car the kids called it. It was fast!

After 3 hours of racing, it came down to the final cars. Chojuk and the Camo Car were in a tie for first place. So they had a race off. First they put Black Lightning in one lane to race and Camo in another, then they'd switch so that if there was a fast lane, no one was benefited by it. I think there was a fast lane because Black Lighning would win, then Camo would win. Black Lightning, Camo, back and forth. It took 10 minutes for a winner to finally emerge.

Here is the track. And as you can see, Chojuk was very excited to watch his car race.


They had a laser finish line that would register the winners. It would then send the information to a computer and they'd make a spreadsheet to record all the information. Abuck would have loved it. He's into spreadsheets.

Everyone gets something at the Pinewood Derby Races. The Doodlebug was called forward to receive her participation medal first. She might as well have been crowned Queen of the World. She was so proud. She walked off waving and smiling at all her adoring fans.

The Snugglebug's car won first place in his division. He was so excited! Last year he was second so first was an improvement. Papa and I were surprised. We had put so much effort into Chojuk's car doing well that Snugglebug's didn't get as much attention. Turns out it didn't need it. It was a good car.

He was so proud to have another trophy to add to his collection!

And Chojuk got first in his division too! He was so excited... but not surprised! He cheered his car on at each race and knew exactly how many he had won.

This is Chojuk's biggest trophy. He was so happy to get it. At least I thought he was. When he called to tell Mimi about his big day, he told her he only got a small trophy... not the big one. The Grand Champion trophy. We'll try for that one next year.

It was exciting to have two first place finishers. (Next year we'll go for three, because the Snugglebug will move up a category.) The Pecan Family will be a force next year!

2 comments:

Aloha Ya'll! said...

You need to have a pecan shaped car next year!!!

The Nutty Mama said...

I wanted to do that THIS year, but I wasn't in charge of the car carve. I was scrapbooking :) Next year, I'll be all caught up so I can go myself!