AWANA Pinewood Derby

Beth attends an AWANA club at a local church. One of the many events that they do is the 'Pinewood Derby', which originally started as a racing event for the Boy Scouts of America, but which has now spread to other organizations to the point where there is now an entire industry dedicated to the supply of tracks, timers, car accessories, etc. The car kit comprises (as a minimum) a block of wood (usually made of pine) with two slots for axles, four plastic wheels & four stub axles. The finished car must use everything in the kit (with the exception of the decals), & must comply with certain geometric parameters (e.g. width, ground clearance, & weight. The car can be decorated however the racer wants, but the emphasis is on the racer (i.e. the child) doing most of the work (unless not safe to do so, e.g. cutting the wooden block to initially shape the vehicle). I helped Beth to cut & shape her car & to decorate it, but she came up with the design. The entire car was covered in glitter (purple) with a gold glitter racing stripe, her number (43) on the roof in silver glitter & silver glitter for the windows. We tried to just make this event fun for Beth, but it was obvious that a lot of the parents take it very, very, seriously to the point of bringing tools & weights to the event so that they can alter the vehicle so that it is close to the maximum weight as possible (our car was dead-on the weight limit with no modifications). Call me a cynic, but I think that a lot of the cars were built by the parents (which is not really in the spirit of the event) with young children (5 or 6) having perfectly shaped, perfectly painted cars, that run really fast. The racing was set out in brackets to ensure that each car had multiple opportunities at making it into the final, & as the cars actually pick up quite a bit of speed on the track, a digital timing system is used to ensure that the winning car really is recorded as the winner. We had great fun & perhaps next year we will get serious about trying to win the cup!