The Wargos

Posted: January 27, 2013 | Categories: Family

Every year, I invite August's Cub Scout pack over to the house to use my tools to create the members pinewood derby cars. It’s a lot of fun, we usually get a great turnout and some pretty interesting cars are made. Afterwards we order some pizza and have a big Cub Scout pizza party. The kids enjoy themselves, Elizabeth chases the boys she likes around the house and the boys pretend that they don’t like her and HATE being chased by her.

Anyways, when the fathers come over with their sons (sometimes an occasional mother with her son instead) it’s really funny to watch how involved the scout actually is in the creation of ‘their’ car. The kids start out in the workshop, but it’s not long before they’re playing in the yard and the dad’s are ‘finishing’ the cars. This is when the really interesting designs come into play – the father realizes that if the kid’s not involved that the father can make the car he’s always wanted. August has never been really interested in the car making process. Not being a big fan of doing everything for my kids, I started out by helping August with the design and showing him how to make the cuts and so on. I always made him do the painting and stuff, only stepping in at the end to put the wheels on and perhaps add some weight.

Last year, August did most of it himself. He did the design, made the cuts, sanded it down and painted it. The only thing I did was the wheels and weight. When it came to race day, his car was pretty bad – last or second to last in every race. He wasn’t happy with that, but handled it pretty well.

This year? Same thing all over again – he designed the car, made the cuts, sanded it (on the bench sander and by hand), painted and decorated it. I’d planned on doing some finalization work with him last week, but we all got busy and before we knew it, it was the night before the race and the car wasn’t tuned and ready to go.

August and I headed over to the workshop and got to work. I tried to get him to put the wheels on, but it was too hard for him, so I stepped in. I’d realized that I’d not thought about weight and grabbed the scale to find out that August’s car was at 2.5 ounces (half of the allowed/optimal weight). I rooted around the shop and ‘found’ a box of big washers (I knew exactly where they were)  and made a stack of them that brought his car weight up to close to the limit. In the morning, I quickly epoxied the washers on to the top of his car. When I did it, I thought about stacking them up on top of the car (like a tower or smokestack), but decided at the last second to spread them across the top of the car between the wheels. I thought it looked cool, but wasn’t sure how August would feel about it.

Here’s the car – washers and all.

I had to work the breakfast at the races, so I headed over to the event and Anna waited for the kids to get up. August must have registered some disdain at my weight installation, because Anna called me and was looking for the car’s spray paint. She gave it a quick paint job and headed off to the race.

Anyway, at the race, August and I put some graphite on the axels and registered the car. When his Den’s race came up, we watched in anticipation as the first heat was run. In order to make everything ‘fair’ (Life isn’t Fair) they run each car in each track lane so nobody can complain about one lane being faster/slower than another.

Now remember, August really hasn’t put a lot of effort into this car. He made it and he’s proud of it, but we didn’t tune it, we didn’t make sure the weight was distributed evenly and at the precise amount. We simply schlepped the car together (with me last minute gluing some old washers on top).

First race? 5th place. Aaah, too bad. Not last, but darn close. I prepared myself to support August and to promise to try harder next year.

Second race? 2nd Place. Hmmm, interesting…

Third race? 2nd Place. Hmmm, even more interesting…

Of course, I’m starting to get excited here, right? I may have been more excited that August.

Fourth race? 1st Place. Not ‘interesting’ any more – but exciting.

Fifth race? 1st Place. Very exciting!

Sixth race? 1st place yet again. Holy sh%#! That’s amazing!

End of the day, August took third place for his den and he’s quite proud (see photo). He’s already planning on using the same car next year, but I’m hoping we can start early and really work on the car for next year.

Me? Yea, I’m proud – he made the car, I only helped.

You may be asking how he could only get third place with wins like that. His den had 12 cars in it and they split everyone into two groups. He competed against 5 cars out of 12 over 6 of the 12 heats. Make sense?

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