Gerrit’s Green Lightning

Cub Scout racing events have definitely been down and up for our family. Ethan’s pinewood derby car came in last place in every race, but his raingutter regatta boat was unbeatable. We missed out on the rockets — I think we were out of town — so the next event was pinewood derby again. Of course, Ethan has moved on to the eleven year old scouts, so it was Gerrit’s turn to give it a go.

Gerrit’s attitude about building his car differed from Ethan’s in that Gerrit actually wanted to do it and enjoyed taking a little time. There were a few more cuts involved in Gerrit’s design but the car’s heritage as a rectangular block of pine was still fairly evident. That’s not to say that we would have been capable of much more. It’s hard to be fancy when all you’ve got is a coping saw and a dad who’s own Cub Scout derby experience was using his brother’s car (thanks, Alan).

Gerrit and I worked together cutting out the car in the freezing cold garage while Afton, thrilled to be out of the house, wandered around whacking things with channel locks that she declared was a hammer. We had to move to the basement when it came time to paint in order to be within the recommended temperature range. To finish things off, Shannon took Gerrit on a date to pick up some stickers, weights and graphite.

At the weigh-in, a neighbor showed some concern about the weights we had, and assertively suggested that we use some stick-on weights that he had. I thought we’d be OK, but since he seemed to feel pretty strongly about it, we used the proffered weights instead. The car ended up at 4.8 ounces out of an allowed 5 so we called it good. Gerrit parked his car, which he christened “Green Lightning”, in his homemade garage made from an old french toast sticks box and waited for the race the next day.

We raced furiously the next night — but that was just to get dinner before the derby because of a little confusion about the start time. Finally the moment had come, and Gerrit got his chance to put his car up on the track with three others out of the thirty cars racing that night. As he was putting his car on the track, it occurred to me that his car had never even been rolled before. I hoped that it would hold together and at least not come in last in every race. I was a little shocked when his car easily won the heat.

One of the other dads was saying to me, “Looks like you’ve got a winner there.” I kind of shrugged it off, still having memories of Ethan’s car. But then Gerrit’s car won its next race, too. And the one after that. Gerrit was ecstatic. He gave me a hand tingling high-five. In the next two races, though, his car came in second, and I hoped that he’d be able to place in the top three for his den after such a good initial showing.

After whatever calculations by the race officials, Gerrit ended up in the finals for the Wolf Den. Somewhat to my surprise, his car won! He had won first place for his den. After the winners for the Bear and Webelos dens were determined, there was a final race to determine the overall winner. The video below shows that race. Gerrit’s car is in the leftmost lane. (Sorry the video quality is so atrocious…)

Pinewood Derby Final Race (Windows Media)

After the race, some dads were questioning me. “You didn’t buff your axles or your wheels?”

“No.”

“You just basically put it together and put some graphite on the wheels?”

“Yup, pretty much.”

The neighbor who had given us the weights turned Gerrit’s car over in his hands saying, “You know. If you look at the information on the Internet, this car is all wrong. Sometimes the stars just align.”

Maybe so. Maybe we just happened upon a fast block of pine.