Pinewood Derby Race Day

Today was our Cub Scout Pack 200 Pinewood Derby Race Day.  We made our cars two days before the race and needed help getting the wheels on.  We worked together and went to the cub scout Derby workshops where they cut the cars out for us.  The boys took two matchbox cars to the have their woodblocks cut out.  They picked their stickers and for racing stripes they found a sheet of "duct tape" at A.C. Moore. They sanded their cars and began to paint...then the decals went on and off to the prequalifying on Friday night we went...without our wheels on.  The Scout Master assisted up as we did not know what we were doing...and we were told to add graphite to the wheel hubs...without instruction and so we left our cars last night in anticipation for the race.   We had no anticipation of winning a race, if we did we'd be thrilled.  As we saw on prequalification night that there are plenty of scouts and their parents that take this seriously.  There were tips that were shared about how to make your car faster..how your cars should be shaped, how much weight and where it should be placed were many of the tips we over heard or were told.  We just had fun.  The boys had fun.  We made cars together and the boys were happy.  We were happy.  We NEVER anticipated to win.  In fact, we even made plans for the upcoming weekend to visit relatives and friends...even though it was the District Competition.  That is how certain we knew that our cars were not up to par and that we didn't think we'd win.  Now, don't get me wrong....we wanted nothing more than to see our kids cars cross the finish line first, but we just went into it with the motto of a cub scout "Do Your Best".  The most important thing for us was that our kids had fun.  In fact when we had our cars weighed...Elliott's car weighed 4.901 and Coopers was 4.8 and the check in qualifiers asked us if we wanted to add more weight before checking our cars in.  The cars could weigh up to 5.0 oz.   We declined and observed others look on as if we should add more...but it wasn't important to us to add more weight to win.   The kids were happy with their cars..and we sent them into the prequalifying pit. 

Today was the day of the race.  We arrived and like proud parents took pictures and quite frankly thought that our kids would do ok, maybe win a race here or there...and then we'd be gone by lunchtime.  This was not the case.  First race up...Elliott wins.  What a great moment to watch him beam with pride.  Next race, Cooper is up..he comes in second but he doesn't seem to mind at all.  He places his car back and walks by where I am sitting at the finish line and gives me a kiss.  My heart swells.  Elliotts car goes down several more times...finishing first, second, third...he never shows disappointment.  He high fives his team mates and you see him thumbs up when his friends win.  Each time Cooper car goes down he comes over each and everytime and gives me a kiss.  I have to say that was the best award received for this day....for I did not see any other mom get such a sweet reward from their scout.  Whether he kissed me for luck or not...his car kept winning coming in 1st in almost every race he was in.  The last race Elliott is up...and his car comes in first.  Now for the judging.....and to my surprise Cooper wins first!  He is off to the Districts!! Elliott placed 8th out of 15 and did an outstanding job.  I could tell he felt sad that he did not place 1, 2 or 3...he really wanted a trophy.  But he was so excited to receive the blue ribbon everyone got for participating...you would have thought it was a trophy!  They watched and cheered on the Wolves and observed the record breaking Weeblos... observing the cars and how fast their speeds were.  Cooper had to continue to the finals with the other cars to see which car was the fastest overall.  There was one Weeblo that showed such outstanding sportsmanship...cub scout shakes with every finish and good race comments to his fellow racers.  He impressed me so much I had to find out his name and make sure I told the Scout Master and then his mother. 

Later that afternoon when we were cleaning up, I spoke to the boys and to another scout neighbor about this particular scout who, to me, won the biggest award of the day (aside from my Cooper kisses....beaming proud mom heart of mine is biased on this one) I shared with them how this young fellow scout displayed such great sportsmanship and conduct that was better than any trophy,certificate, or ribbon that day.  It was such a great day....from beginning to end.  What a great experience for us all.  The saying "it doesn't matter if you win or lose it matters if you have fun" is so true.  Not only did we have fun....we had what mattered most...our memories of this moment we spent together!