Pinewood Derby

I worked hard on my Pinewood Derby car. I had to make my car and Daddy helped me. I cut out the car design. I put weights in it and sanded it. I painted it with tape on it. When I took the tape off, there was a place where there is not paint. I put the numbers on (13, because “M” is the 13th letter) and then made it shine by spraying more paint on it. It was fun. Don’t you think it looks nice?

I raced on Saturday. The first thing I had to do was the weigh in. They weighed and measured and tested the wheels. The car has to be under 7 inches and weigh 5 ounces or less. Mine was 4.9 ounces! It was perfect with a dime, but adding the tape would, oops!, make it go over.

The people who came to watch my race was Oma, Opa, Grandma, Grandpa, Momma, Daddy, Esther, Andrea, Audrey, Georgie and Adrian. Georgie likes race cars so he “when can I watch the race?!” He gets to watch his daddy race cars, but these were different.

I raced my first race very well. The back on my car jiggled and bounced off the track. Then it slowed me down. My second race I lost by a little bit. The third one I lost by a lot. The other guy’s car was better than mine because the wheels on mine gone angled and the wheels had contact with the head of the axle 100% of the time. It slowed me down!

Next year, I am going to put some more friction on it. I have to research how. We think it was too finely tuned and the track was not fine enough. When it bumped, my car jiggled, jiggled, jiggling down the track.

I feel proud of my car. I worked so hard on it. I feel mixed emotions about if I am sad or if I am glad that I did not win. They have to confiscate your car if you win, because there’s another race they go to. It would have been fun to race in the second race. So they did not have to confiscate my car and I can play with it.

I know what color I am going to do next year. If I had won, it would have been green next year. But, since I did not win, I am keeping my blues. I am not giving up on blues until I win. The only difference next year, is the stripe will be different and a different car design.

Stay tuned next year, for next year’s race!