It’s a Derby, Dude!

So a couple of days ago Handsome competed in his 1st ever Pine Wood Derby with the Cub Scouts. He had a blast, running about playing with the other kids as I stood with the other parents and watched the races. Handsome and I didn’t do very well our first time out; we had built a car that looked good, and went by nice and slow so you had plenty of time to admire it.

Whoops!

Well, I thought, I guess I’ll have to cheer him up. You know, tell him ‘Better luck next time’, and all that. Little did I know…

After the race I asked Handsome if he had fun.

“Yup.”

“Well, that’s terrific,” I said. “I’m sorry you didn’t win, but at least you had a good time! That’s the spirit!”

“Besides,” he said, very nonchalantly, “I plan to win next year.”

Now, I was all kinds of impressed with this attitude. I was proud of the way he was taking the loss, and blown away that the Scouts could have such a positive effect on my son. That night, in fact, he got out some paper and began to sketch designs for the car he wants to run next year. A Bugs Bunny car.

Then he mentioned a Lightning McQueen car. And a Tasmanian Devil car, then another, and another.

“Waitaminute!” I said. “Aren’t you going to settle on one car to work on?”

Nope. The new plan is to make all of his ideas, then see which runs the fastest. Over the course of the year. This is why he needs to start now.

“Where can we get the wood?” he said.

“I don’t know,” I said, “I’ll have to look it up.”

He beat me to it. He used his own Google-foo. I went upstairs to find him on my computer checking out a website where we can get whole Pinewood Derby Car kits.

In lots of 10.

It’s gonna be a long year.

Talk to you later!