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Friday, January 28, 2005
Many of you have contacted Salsa to find out how the Pinewood Derby went for Jordan and I last weekend. Here's the inside scoop. Friday Afternoon I became a little nervous at our sticky, right front wheel. It was catching on a faulty axle head. Rather than going into the race with that huge disadvantage, I left work early and headed for the Hobby Store for a set of replacement axles (nails). My nerves were firing but after successfully removing the old axles, the new ones were installed and we headed for the Weigh-In. Friday Night Weigh-In Kids were jibbering and jabbering all around, but Jordan and I bypassed the smacktalkers...we'd let the Flyin' Eagle do the talking! The car was put on the scale and came in at the perfect 5.0 ounce fighting weight. We wished the car goodnight and left it in the hands of the officials. Saturday Morning Race Day I'm not sure who was more nervous, the kids or the dads...actually, I am sure. It was the dads. I'd heard these two twins had very fast cars the year before and their dad was obviously going for the win. He was sweating bullets. I just sat in my chair and rocked back and forth while Beck tried to keep me calm. Jordan was already talking about how he wanted a trophy. The Tracks These Days It's not like the old days of wooden tracks and visual judging. This was a state-of-the-art bright yellow plastic track with electronic timing. Results from heats were projected onto a screen for all to see. Wow. Pinewood Derby racing is serious business in the year 2005. The First Heat Twin #1 set a record time. Then his brother broke that record. Then the Flyin' Eagle set a course record!!! We were psyched and the twins dad was sweatin'! The Day Continues For some reason which I am still trying to solve, the cars all began to slow down for a few heats. We remained fairly consistent and claimed a 2nd place in Den 7. First went to one of the twins. The Round Of Eight Luckily we qualified among the fastest eight cars in the whole pack and made it into the final 4 heats to decide the trophy. Course records were being set and then broken as the cars mysteriously began running faster again (my theories are the graphite actually works better when worn in or the track was getting smoother as excess graphite filled in the rough spots). We put in four solid runs, winning one of them, and placing 5 overall for Pack 268. We were both psyched and learned some valuable lessons that we will apply to the Flyin' Eagle in 2006 when it comes back for vengeance! Tight Racing The whole electronic scoring thing was really cool. Usually heats were being won by 2/100ths of a second or so. There was one run that showed a difference between the first two cars of 4/1000ths of a second. Yikes! That's close. Den 7 was hoping for fastest den award as every kid in the den would get a medal but no such luck. We were nipped by 1/100th of a second by some Webelos from Den 5. Dirty dogs is all I've got to say. Next Year The Flyin' Eagle will return with some serious modifications. I'd tell you about them but then I'd have to kill you. -Kid Posted by Salsa Kid : 2:30 PM 0 comments | permalink  |
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