Pinewood Derby

"Thank you...or should I say NO thank you."  Just one of my son's favorite lines from the movie, Cars that he repeats back to me when he doesn't want to clean his room, eat his green beans or run errands with me.  It's almost so funny that I have a hard time rebuffing his sarcasm.  Lightning McQueen sayings get a lot of air time around here which isn't surprising considering how often he's seen the movie.  So, when a couple of months ago he learned that his Awana Club was having a pinewood derby he immediately requested that Mike make him a replica of his favorite car.  And, to complicate things more, Mike decided that Emily should have a Mr. The King car to round out the theme. Below is just the beginning stages.

Now, as many of you know, Mike is pretty handy and mechanical so I knew this would be no problem for him.  What I didn't know, but should have foreseen, was just how many hours he was willing to put into making the perfect Lightning derby car.  Derby cars are small and typically don't take too long to build, but somehow we were able to stretch this project out over at least two months.

Race day came, and we definitely had two near perfect look alikes.  Mike had mentioned that he didn't know how fast they would be, so he had two "no-frills" cars ready to race just in case.  Noah had talked about nothing else for weeks, and Emily was very set on taking home the biggest trophy.  During weigh in, she even decided that she wanted to race her plain jane car instead of Mr. The King, because it was probably faster.
The heats start...with Noah's age group first.  I can tell right away that his car is going nowhere fast...actually nowhere slow....very slow.   But, when it was all over, and he didn't make the finals he seemed pretty unphased.   His bigger concern was when they were cutting the cake, and if he was going to get the end piece that he wanted.
Emily is a different story...all of my competitive drive in a six year old body. Her car ran pretty fast coming in 1st or 2nd in her heats, but not fast enough for the finals. Cue the breakdown.  As soon as she realized that the shiny first place trophy was going to be going home with someone else the tears started and didn't stop till we got home. As if this didn't make Mike feel bad enough, I decided (in what is admittedly not my proudest moment) to scold him for not making the cars faster.  $100,000 dollars worth of tools in that garage, and we can't pull out a pinewood derby win?  Come on!!!!  We want to win...who cares what the car looks like??!!!  Like I said...not my proudest moment.

So, in the end, we left with nothing but two really cool looking cars, and two "everyone's a winner!" participation ribbons. But, look out...next year we are going for speed, and I am sure that Emily has already picked out a spot for that trophy.  (And if she hasn't...I have.)