[Joe 6-pack]

I hate to rain on your nostalgia parade, but my first pinewood derby car would've blown the wheels off of yours. It's sittin' right there any time you're ready...#8-)

[Beagle8U]

The pinewood derby thing brings back memories for me, just not real nice ones.

I was a tool and die maker many moons ago and the owner of the company gave me the project of tricking out his kids car.

Polish and straighten the axles, turn, true, and balance the lil tires, weigh, trim, and forward weight the lil body of the car, etc. etc.

I don't know if his kid won, but it seemed like a pile of crap cheating to me.

[LexBaird]

but my first pinewood derby car would've blown the wheels off of yours. It's sittin' right there any time you're ready...#8-)

You're on! Mine's in a trunk in the garage. Still remember my Grandad teaching me to carve on it.

[Airborne1986]

"I hate to rain on your nostalgia parade, but my first pinewood derby car would've blown the wheels off of yours. It's sittin' right there any time you're ready...#8-)"

We just bought a new track and "laser" (quotation fingers) timer. We plan to finance it by having a parent Pinewood Derby immediately after the Cub Scout's race their cars. It is like serving up raw meat to Wolves (no pun intended).

[vger]

My Pinewood Derby will blow the doors off of yours. Its got all the secret stuff built in (long wheel base, runs on three wheels, ballast in the back trunk, whoops shouldn't have told ya :-).

[BraveMan]

. . . my first pinewood derby car would've blown the wheels off of yours.

I built a rocket-powered Pinewood Derby car during my son's second year of competition. It was powered by an Estes model rocket motor activated by a microswitch in the nose of the car. The rocket had a two second burn time, with a six inch flame out the back. Drop the gate, wait one second and WHOOSH!! It was a real crowd pleaser . . .

[ImaGraftedBranch]

I hate to rain on your nostalgia parade, but my first pinewood derby car would've blown the wheels off of yours. It's sittin' right there any time you're ready...

My son (Freeper Ultra Sonic 007) has a winner from 10 years ago that you'd love to race.

We didn't start making it until the night before the race, and didn't put any weights in the thing until it was first weighed right before the contest. I thought we should distribute weights along the length of the body, but my son (recently awarded a full-ride scholarship for mathematics) decided on where the weight placements should go (hey -- it was HIS race), so I drilled, he glued and set them. We weighed it again, and it was exactly at the weight limit. A little graphite was added, and the races began.

It was a strange car. A simple delta shape, that started out slow, behind the pack, and then right before it bottoms out at the base of the hill, picked up some incredible momentum that blew the rest away in the last few feet.

He centered the weights around the rear axle. He never lost a race. His is still sitting on his desk also....LOL.