pinewood derby 2013

It all started with an idea.

"I want to do a Model T for my pinewood derby car," Spencer told us.

"Really?" I inquired, "That will look awesome, but it's not going to be very fast."

"I know," he replied, not to be deterred. I reminded him of Dad's mantra, that your car can look good or go fast, but it's hard to do both.  "I know," he replied.

It was a little hard for my brain to process that the most competitive kid in the universe was knowingly choosing a slow car, so we repeated that conversation at least 2 more times.

He held his ground, so I finally decided to stay out of it. (It's hard not to be bossy.)

His car does look amazing.  He got lots of compliments on it.  It didn't win (the overall winner is below with the pink/black/yellow stripes.) but it wasn't the absolute slowest either.

In the end, I think he was happy with how it all turned out.  However, he did tell me, "Next year, I'm going for speed!  I don't even care what it looks like!"

Kudos to Stick who's been building pinewood derby cars for the last 6 years straight. Some years he's built two cars and last year, three!  Next year we will need two again.