Josh's 1st Pinewood Derby

Josh is not quite 8 yet, but they decided to let Josh join scouts a month early so he could participate in the annual pinewood derby. Glad they did, he loved every minute of it. He helped design, build, and paint his car. He ended up with a really nice, sleek black car. He was up against some tough competition and 15 other cars, but he was ready.




Josh's car was pretty quick, he did really well in the heat races finishing 1st, 2nd, 1st. After the heats, he ended up in a tie for second so they had a head to head race for 2nd. Josh won the first run off by two car lengths. Then they switched lanes and did it again. You can see the results in the video below. Check out the catch up speed on Josh's car. If you look close, the orange car even leaves just a little early.



So Josh ended up with a very good 2nd place finish, not bad for his first pinewood derby. He had a blast watching his car win just about every race of the night.

Ok.... I know it was just a pinewood derby and it was just for fun and we should be happy with second, but.... There is an asterisk in the record books for the 2009 pinewood derby. The folks in the BCS.... I mean the scout leaders, had some tricky formula that prevented Josh's 2nd place car from ever racing the 1st place car. That's right, #1 and #2 never raced against each other. In fact, the 1st place car never raced against the 3rd place car either. This was not a timed race, it was all about placement in each race, so you might ask how could this be? Wouldn't the first place car have to prove itself against the fastest cars? How could they award a car 1st place that didn't even beat the 2nd or 3rd place cars? What's even crazier is that the one car that beat Josh in the heat races didn't even place in the top 3.... What? Oh well, what are you going to do. I don't really have a case that I can take to Congress but we will always wonder who really won that night.

Here is one more video of the heat races. Josh is in the far right lane, the other black car in the middle lane was beating everyone pretty easily in its races so we were a little nervous about the outcome of this race.



It was a great night, Josh had a blast. We must say a BIG thank you to Grandpa for helping put together another really fast car. The Clark Pinewood Racing Team legacy lives on.

Posted by Matt