Pinewood Derby

Today was the big race.... the Pinewood Derby.

Ethan and I got the wheels on our cars earlier this week and used some teflon powder to lube them up a bit. We didn't have a scale to check the weight so we left that till last minute when we got to the race. Some minor weight adjustments and borrowed some graphite from another racer and we checked in the cars, ready to go.

Here are the cars from the Tiger Cub Den.

Ethan's is the white one in the front row.

The event started with the Tiger Cub den. Each car raced 4 times and got points based on what place they were in each. The car with the fewest points was the winner to move on to the championships.

Ethan got a 1st, 3rd and 2 seconds for a total of 8 points, which meant 3rd place in the den, good enough for a ribbon!


My car raced in the "Dads" group. I was consistent at least. 4th place in each of 4 races. But my car looked good.

Ethan and I ran our cars down the track together .

Almost Race Day

Well, in about 15 hours the Renegade Off-Road Triathlon starts. I'm feeling pretty good though I missed taking an allergy pill yesterday morning and by afternoon felt pretty awful. Picked up some Claratin on the way home and started to feel better, though not perfect. Felt even better after a good nights sleep and a pill this morning. I don't want to have any excuses for not doing as well as I'd like but I'll push through.

According to the web site the race results will be posted by 5pm on Monday 6 April 2009.

Yesterday Ethan and I went with the Tiger Cubs to visit a radio station. We went to the local Public Radio station KPCC. It was pretty interesting for me to see how stuff has changed from analog to digital in the 18 years since I did public radio in college. All of the Tiger Cubs got a chance to talk into the microphone.

Stickers

When the paint was dry, a week ago, Ethan and I put decals on our derby cars.


Ethan got flames, lightning bolts, some flags and a few logos.

I got white pinstripes and a few logos.

Pinewood Derby Cars

One of my greatest moments of childhood trauma was the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. I was the kid that had made my car all by myself and when the big race came along my car stopped 1/2 way down the track and had to deal with the embarrassment of walking up to get my stalled car. Here we are 30 years later and I'm the Cub Scout leader helping 6 boys with their cars... pressure.

We had the den over to our place to get started on our cars. There's a lot more pictures and story over at http://tigercubscouts.blogspot.com

I got to help Ethan and the other boys using the band saw.



Then everyone dis some hand sanding. No one seems to like that part.


It took a while to get the shapes cut out on all of the cars so after everyone left Ethan and I worked on his car a bit more.

Beginning with sanding some more.


Then paint. He wanted multi colors and chose black and white. (Is that really multi color?)


The sides got black and after that dried we masked it off so he could paint the top white.


More to come..... after the paint drys.

A good day to be inside

Went for a hike yesterday with the Tiger Cubs and only got a little wet from crossing the creek and the mist from the waterfall... it would be very different if we were out there today because it's pouring.


Today is a beautiful day of hanging inside, watching the rain and collecting music for KC's birthday party next weekend.

The leg is still a little sore from getting kicked last week. I'd really like to get some running in, maybe I'll head to the gym tonight and give it an easy try on the treadmill.