Pinewood Derby

Last weekend was the Pinewood Derby. I was quite nervous because a number of the tracks I had lined up ended up falling through. Fortunately (thanks to Lynette's good find), I had reserved a backup track...but it was down in Provo.

So, the morning of the Derby (while Lynette was away at Trek training), I loaded the kids up and drove ~55 minutes to pick up the track. It was packed a little bigger than expected and we barely fit all 3 kids and myself back in the van for the drive home. We got home just in time for the kids to head to a primary activity (they had tons of watery fun with sprinklers, water toys, water balloons, etc.). Meanwhile, I got together all of the various Award Certificates, Activity Packets, Decorations and tools so after lunch we were set to hit the church to setup the track and get ready.

The Derby Pack Meeting was slated to begin at 3. At about 2:40, we finally had the track set up and the decorations and chairs ready (thanks again to Lynette and the kids for all their help). I rushed home to get into my uniform and was back just in time to help postpone the Derby while we waited for missing Cubs to arrive and for arriving Cubs to fix their cars that had trouble (one car fell and the back of it broke off...thanks to a great dad in the pit crew between each race, it managed to survive until the end).

Since the Bears and Wolves had been to Cub Camp just a couple of weeks previously, we had a lot of awards to hand out, which was good because it helped cars get ready and helped stall while we waited for our line judges.

At about 3:30, our first race was off. Over the next hour, we ran almost 20 heats between the 11 cars. There were some awesome cars in the running and the kids had a ton of fun. We finished up with some tasty refreshments, awarding of certificates and medals to all racers and then dismantled the track and ran it back to Provo.

All in all, it was a great Derby. There were a few lessons learned (allow more time for setup, make sure you have a microphone, have the heats/structure set up beforehand) but mostly it was just a lot of fun.