Sunday, February 07, 2010

Triumph At the Pinewood Derby

The Brooks Family had an incredible morning yesterday. I was there and I still can hardly believe it. It was the day of the Cub Scouts' Pinewood Derby, held at Kingswood High School. The boys had spent a good deal of time preparing their cars, and William had been up late making oatmeal cookies for the bake sale. We arrived at the school in separate cars because Karen had to go to work when it was all over. We had our cars, extra graphite, tools in case of a mishap, and, of course, William's cookies.

The maximum weight of a Pinewood Derby car is five ounces. We had used my postal scale to get as close as we could, but we had extra weights in case we needed to add weight, and pliers in case we needed to take it away.


Danny's car weighed in at 4.9 ounces. I wasn't going to mess with that. I figured that I would probably do more damage trying to add the extra tenth of an ounce, and with more experienced Scouts and dads putting their work and ideas into the other cars, I would just be glad if our cars made it to the end of the track without losing their wheels.


William's car was 4.8 ounces and had already lost a wheel during our test weight-in. So we concentrated our attention on getting that wheels back on and getting the car rolling straight.

During the Leader Race, something went wrong over at the refreshments counter. The coffee pot, tea pot, and hot dog warmer were all plugged into the same outlet, At first the breaker on the power strip tripped, so we plugged two into the strip and one into the wall. But the circuit, apparently, was still not enough for all three appliances and it tripped. With no access to the breaker panel, we went in search of other outlets, and finally found them, laying extension cords and carefully taping them down for safety.

But with all that I managed to settle down to watch the race before my sons' cars were at the gate. The race was a double-elimination, which meant that each car could lose twice before being dropped from the race. William lost his first heat, but we were both glad that the car just made it down with the wheels intact.

Then Danny's car was up, and it won the first heat. Wow, cool. Very unexpected, but very cool. Danny went over to the refreshments table, where Karen was working, to deliver the good news.

William won his second heat, and I was happy that both boys would be able to stay in the race a little longer. And then a pattern emerged. Danny's car kept winning. Much to the surprise of all of us, my little Tiger Cub was beating every car out there, sometimes by a tiny fraction of a second, but always ahead.

By the time the race was over, Danny still didn't realize what had happened. He knew he's won several times, but all the adults around him knew that he had led the pack, not only with the most wins but with the fastest time of the day.

The anticipation was overwhelming. We waited through the raffle, during which Karen one a set of power tools and William won a wonderful candy basket, and then the awards ceremony started. Danny got a first place trophy for his division, consisting of both of the Tiger Dens. William got a second place trophy for the Bears. And then the Pack Leader announced that the first place winner was Daniel Brooks. Danny ran to the podium to get his prize. He has thrilled! So were we.

Danny was a little upset with the news that he couldn't play with his car after the race, and many of the other boys were doing. Why not? Because he had to keep it in good condition for a district-wide race. That's right, Danny is going on to compete with Scouts from other Packs. I don't know the details yet, but you will when I do.

I have no idea how Danny's car will do in this bigger competition, and I don't really care. Just the fact that, at seven, he gets to have a nice trophy from a memorable day,  with a trip to look forward to where he gets to meet and compete with other Scouts, means that he's already a big winner.

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