Pinewood Derby

So, it's that time of year again. It kind of sneaks up on ya.  Gunnar participated in the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby yesterday.  I rushed from work (out of town nearly 90 minutes away) to get there in time and didn't grab the camera.  I guess there's a missed scrapbook page.  Oops.  What I should do is make Gunnar put on his scout shirt and hat and then take his picture with his car!  Well, that might take too much effort.

Anyhoo . . . Gunnar designed, cut, sanded his car.  Neil drilled holes for the weights, then drilled some holes back out the bottom to get it back to the correct 5 ounce weight.  We did have a little incident of breakage, scramble to get another kit, re-cut, re-sand, re-drill.  But it wasn't all that stressful and Gunnar actually handled the situation well - no meltdown, no freaking out, no negative attitude.  That's pretty huge for him.  Then, Gunnar pained it.  He was going for the most colorful car trophy.  He also told me on the way to the church that he wanted the Sportsmanship trophy.  Not because he thinks he is a good sportsman, but because it's a bigger trophy than even the race ones.  It's a nice car.  

Gunnar finished in second place.  Yes, he finished second last year by just a few hundredths of a second.  This year there is reason to believe the first place car was overweight.  Gunnar didn't lose any other races except to this other car and the other car beat Gunnar by a good 1/2 a car length.  They didn't have a digital scale and according to their scale Gunnar's car was half an ounce shy, but our digital scale it weighed 5.04 ounces.  So, we will never really know.  But in the end, Gunnar has another second place trophy.  The first and third place winners were his friends, so I think it's all good for him in the end.

So, here's a quick snapshot of him and his car.  He did win the Muscle Car trophy, which he was surprised and excited about. The "tail pipes" out the back are bullets.  It's pretty sweet.