Today was the big race. Corwin and I had to run out this morning to the office to do some final work on the car, to bring it up to the correct weight. Corwin and I went to the Boy Scout store yesterday to pick up some extra goodies, including weights for the car. Back in my day, those were made of lead but modern, ecologically insensitive boys apparently use zinc these days. As it turns out, however, zinc is a somewhat stronger metal than lead. This makes working with it a bit more of a challenge. Corwin can’t use lead because it’s hazardous but he can’t really work with the zinc either because it requires the use of dangerous tools. Maybe I should have gone with the BB and epoxy scheme.
We went to the office because it has a scale we could use to weigh the car. It took a lot of cutting and grinding to get the weight down to the legal limit. I worked on the weight for a bit after the scale was at 5 ounces because I wanted to be sure that it would pass even if our scale and the official one rounded differently. It ended up taking about an hour to get everything set. Corwin selected the location for the weights and put them on after I had adjusted them.
We then returned home, put some graphite on the wheels and headed out for the race. I was impressed with how much difference the graphite made. The wheels easily spun almost twice as long with graphite.
My one true hope for the event was that Corwin would win at least one race. A total of 21 cars were competing and they actually did it as a round robin so every car raced 20 times. After waiting while everyone got registered and voted for the best looking cars (there was one other car that had been painted by the child, so Corwin’s wasn’t off the bottom end of the scale in terms of visual quality) it was time for the first race. One of the two cars went off the track so they called for a re-run. The two kids immediately took off down the track for the cars. Unforunately, one of them got tripped up in the cables and knocked the timing electronics box on the ground hard. It never worked again during the day. I looked at it a bit but the insides were wirewrapped circuts (people still do that? Amazing!). Something had been jarred loose but none of us could figure out what. My primary thought during this whole process was “At least it wasn’t Corwin”.
The event went on in manual mode (just like when I was a boy…). Eventually it was time for Corwin’s first run. It was over in three seconds and Corwin won! Mom had arrived by then and I told her “OK, that’s enough for me - he’s not going to get skunked”.
But it wasn’t enough for Corwin. He kept on winning. By the time he’d won 7 or 8 times he was literally bouncing whenever they’d call him up for the next run. About the same time I mentioned to Mom that while my worst fear was a shutout, my second was a victory for Corwin, because then what would we do next year? Mom just laughed at me the way she does when I tell her I’m going to pick up other women. However, Corwin ran up a 14 win streak before being done in by car #1, which was the car of one of the other boys in his den, named Seth. Corwin won the rest of his runs so he finished 19-1. Two other cars (#1 and #8) also finished 19-1. As best as I can tell, Corwin beat #8 who beat #1 who beat Corwin.
They tried doing a three car double round robin but that ended up in a three way tie again. The cars were so close in speed that which ever was on the right side track won the race. Finally they resorted to timing the races by hand. This was slightly better than just flipping a coin but at least it looked more reasonable. As it turns out, the hand of fate favored Corwin that day and he won the entire derby. I was very proud of the fact that when they announced second place for Seth, Corwin didn’t spontaneously bounce to his feet and shout “I won!” out loud. I could seem him straining in place but he held firm. An unyielding mountain of will, that boy.
On the way home, Corwin asked me if Mom or I had even won a first place trophy. Not in the pinewood derby, I told him, but he said that he was asking about any trophies. What does he think of his Dad to wonder if I’d ever won first at anything in my entire life? I pointed out that I had won a few first place trophies, mostly for math. I asked Corwin when he was going to start winning math trophies. He said that he was going to concentrate on Pinewood Derby - that was his thing.
As I write this, Corwin is still carrying his trophy around. I told him to put it in his room but he said “I want to hold it!”.
Charles, on the other hand, wasn’t very happy about the trophy. His response was “me too!”. As I was unable to supply a first place trophy, Charles popped upstairs and got one of Mom’s running trophies (which, being one of Mom’s was of course first place). He then carted that around so that he could be like Big Brother. I was surprised that Charles remembered that Mom had trophies. Clearly Corwin didn’t.
Later in the evening a painter came over (we’re looking at redoing some of the exterior paint and finish). Corwin spent his time interupting the painter, Mom and I to point out various interesting facts about his car (such as, it came in first). Especially cute was Corwin coming over to the table, slapping down the trophy and saying “I was in the Pinewood Derby today”. Mom finally put a stop to that by making Corwin go practice the violin.
Looks like all of you had a big day on Sat. Congratulations to Corwin!!! Was he able to sleep last night?
Yes. He fell asleep on the couch, clutching his trophy. I had joked with Mom earlier that he was going to sleep with the thing like a stuffed animal. Clearly I need to be more careful what I joke about.
Oh, and this morning Mom reduced him to tears this morning when she told him he couldn’t take his trophy to Sunday school to show the kids there. Hopefully the shine will fade down to normal levels in a week or two.