First Pack Meeting

Liam has only been in Cub Scouts for a month now, and he managed to earn his Bobcat badge and enter his very first Pinewood Derby. I wasn't sure how we were going to manage getting his car cut into the shape Liam wanted because the resident woodcarver (My DAD!!!) is unavailable for a while. Hmph. I toyed with the idea of turning on those saw blades myself but decided my professional career could take a serious hit if I missed the car and took off a finger instead. Fortunately, Liam's den leader has a husband with his own construction company and all of the expertise we needed. Liam drew the design of his car and Brother Cheney cut it exactly to Liam's specifications. He even loaned Liam one of his sanding blocks. Liam had a great evening painting the monster face on his car. I resisted the temptation to leap in and do the painting for him (ooh, that is hard!). I love painting! (And actually, Bronwyn has moaned all through this that it's not fair the girls in Achievement Days don't get to do this kind of thing. She really, really wanted to build a car and paint it. She and I compromised on me letting her paint this wood birdhouse she has had up in her room for a long time while Liam painted his car). Liam could hardly wait for Pack Night last night. Since check-in was at the same time I was finishing up piano teaching Evan walked Liam over to the church to get his car weighed in.

Here's the masterpiece!!



On deck for a race!! Liam's car came in very last in his first two heats, so we decided to make some adjustments. I re-weighed his car and discovered it was still underweight. I taped a couple of house keys on the back end and sprinkled some graphite lubricant into the wheels. That really helped!! I just wanted him to have a fast enough car to not come in last. He took second a couple of times, as well as third and fourth several times. We also found a few little lead weights hanging around and we taped those onto his car too, which brought his car right up to 5 oz.

Liam's first official race! Look at that grin. He handled coming in last really well. The racing was well organized and they ran over 32 heats, which meant the boys got to race their cars loads of times. Once the official races were over, the unofficial racing started. Bronwyn took my old Pinewood Derby car I had made for an elder's quorum couples activity so she could race something, and Evan took one of his old derby cars too. Liam's car won the Driving Miss Daisy award for being a "safe" driver. I think it meant his car went the slowest overall, but I didn't tell him that. He was excited to be able to participate, which is really what this is all about.