Le Bus

It'll be a few years yet before we get to participate in a true-blue Cub Scout Pinewood Derby, but that didn't stop Chris organizing one for Elder's Quorum in the meantime. It probably only encouraged him.

The rules:
Don't interfere with another person's car.

The end. No weight limits. No size limits. No wheel limits. As long as your car wasn't big enough to run into the neighboring lanes of track, it was allowed.

Here is Chris's entry:


We call it "Le Bus" and we are all proud passengers in the back window. We also lend our initials to the license plate.

I painted it for him.


And I have to say, as soon as I pulled up the pictures to start writing this blog, the first thing I noticed was the HUGE gray hair right on top of my head. Before I started uploading anything, I had Chris come over and yank it out. That's one way for a husband to show his affection, right?

Anyway.

You may have noticed that Chris's car was a little on the, ahem, tall side. That was not on accident. First he attached part of a 2 x 4, then hollowed out the whole thing. Hollow, you ask? Well, not exactly. From about a quarter inch from the bottom up to about half an inch from the top, the entire thing is filled with lead. Chris melted down used wheel weights and poured molten lead into the car until it was full, then capped it off with another thin piece of wood. Final weight?

Seven pounds, two ounces.

7 lbs. 2 oz. is the same that Megan weighed when she was born. Two ounces heavier than Jane at birth. That's quite the pinewood derby car, eh?

The race was fun. There were fourteen cars in the lineup, including the batmobile,


and a CO2 powered pick-up.


Yes, it was pushed down the track by the same mini air tanks used in paintball guns. Um, that's fast.

Chris's car did well. Here, you can "watch" some of the race moments yourself.



There was one problem with our green double decker bus. Because it was so heavy, Chris couldn't attach the wheels using the standard groove in the bottom of the kit-provided wood block. The axles would just pop out until the bus was sitting flat on the ground instead of on the wheels. The solution, then, was to drill new holes so the axles were completely encased inside the wood and couldn't pop out. Which leads to the problem: we could never add any more graphite to the wheels once they were in. By the end, they were running dry, which didn't help so much.

All told, Chris tied for fourth. With the CO2 car, no less. The top three places went to a car built using a shoe horn, the batmobile, and a car filled with bird shot, coming it at just over four pounds. Fourth place? Not too shabby.

The girls did have limited participation. We were short in the graphite department (in truth, we've never owned any...), and, good wife that I am, I got my kids out of bed this morning and headed immediately to Lowe's.


Pajamas and all. Jane thought going to the store in her jammies was just about the best Saturday morning adventure ever. As long as it was ok with Dad, which she kept asking me over and over. She constantly has to check lately if something is ok with her dad. Cute, but kind of annoying, too...

I took a picture of Megan during the prayer. Not intentionally, but I had my arms folded with the camera still in my hand. Pretty good for not aiming, huh?


And she's pretty good and folding her arms, even with that cast. Or maybe it's because of the cast and the fact that she can't even unbend her right arm. Who knows.