Pinewood Derby Winners!

Well, this has been a different year being the Tiger cub den leader all year. There are 11 boys in my den - usually they divide the dens after there 8 members. Since most of the boys are all in first grade class we decided to keep them together, but they are a handful. At the last pack meeting, we had to do a skit. After the skit, the Cub Master came up and told me that working with the Tigers was like herding cats, and I can definitely agree.

Last year when Ethan competed in the pinewood derby he came in second place in the tiger den. And the first place tiger was the overall race winner. He was very sad he hadn't done better. This year I went to the scout store and purchased both of their help books. We followed every piece of advice the books gave - which included getting online and buying special wheels and axles. I had derby car stuff spread all over my kitchen for two weeks. The boys picked their own car shapes and finished designs. We went to the wood shop at Mt. Ogden Junior High and they watched their dad cut out their car. They did most of the sanding. We actually went and bought a scale to check our weight. We barely completed the finishing touches of the cars, including doing intense wheel alignments, about an hour or so before the race.

While at the race it was my job to come up with an individual award for each car there. There were 37 cars. I thought giving awards would be lots of fun, but it turned out to harder than I expected. There were five or six cars that were just red or blue shaped. What do you do with that? I was okay with one, but five was a challenge to come up with a unique award.

All of our work this year paid off, because Hayden was the first place tiger. Ethan was the first place wolf. The boys were also the first and second place overall race finishers. Neither of them ever lost a race. (They never raced each other.) They were jumping for joy most of the afternoon.

I sort of felt bad however, that we all did all this hard work and the only thing we got besides knowledge and bragging rights was a piece of paper. All my boys were happy and that is the important part.