Pinewood Derby

Today was the big day - time to unveil Ron & Tyler's finished car and see how it raced!

The "secret" was the working flashing lights on top of the police car. The police car was Tyler's idea, and they decided together it should have lights. Ron did the circuitry himself (after consulting with an expert...thanks Dad R). It was powered by batteries and even had an on/off switch. The boys really just wanted to make a cool looking car. They weren't trying to make it fast. In fact, we kept reminding Tyler not to get his hopes up about winning any races. He seemed fine with that, until we got there and saw all those shiny trophies. Regardless of how cool his car was or what a good time he had with his dad, what kid wouldn't want one of those?!!

Tyler got the response he was looking for regarding his car's "coolness". When they pulled it out for the first race and turned the lights on, we could hear people on the bleachers commenting about it. Several of the kids thought his car was "sweet" and wanted to know how he did it. We even caught some dads checking it out after the races. We were happy for him. And that would have been enough. (BTW, no idea what he's doing w/his hand in this pic!)

What we didn't expect, though, was that his car wasn't the slowest! In fact, he won his first race and got to keep going! Suprisingly, he ended up winning 3rd place in his den and got one of those shiny trophies! He was SOOO excited. A real trophy from a real competition that he really earned...not just a participation trophy that everyone got. Pretty cool!

It was a very long afternoon/evening - we were there over 5 hours. You can see Tyler kind of wilt as the pictures go along. In between races, he was running around and playing with his friends. There was also food and punch served. So, by the time the trophies were awarded, he was sweaty and punch stained but he still looked happy. Dad looked pretty happy, too.