Ben's Pinewood Derby Page
Building Ben's 1st Pinewood Derby car (22MBs)
February 10, 2012
We made the switch to racing for points this year, utilizing all 4 lanes on the Pack's new track.  I pushed hard for this change and felt that it would be more fun for the scouts, but was still nervous about how it would go.  Luckily, things went perfectly and I think that all the scouts had a great time.  We had one preliminary round where all 29 cars raced twice in each lane.  7 cars moved on to a single trophy round and again raced twice in each lane.  So cars either ran 8 or 16 races.  Ben decided to stick with the shape he came up with last year when he built his trophy winning Bullet Bill. In honor of our neighbor Joe though, he went with a Lightning McQueen inspired paint job this time.  I thought it was a pretty cool looking car.

February 26, 2011
1st Place in the Dogwood District

I felt that Ben's little Bullet Bill car was fast enough that, if he wanted to run it a few more times, it would be okay to take it to the Dogwood District Pinewood Derby, especially since the Tiger Cubs compete against other Tigers.  I don't know about Ben, but I was pretty nervous after we got there.  The competition looked stiff.  But would you believe that the little guy won every single race.  He went undefeated and came home with a trophy that he is simply terribly, terribly proud of.  What a fun, exciting experience.  One that I am sure he will remember it for a very long time.  Way to go Ben!

February 11, 2011
Ben did very well in his first Pinewood Derby.  More importantly, we had a lot of fun building the car and racing it.  Because Ben would be competing against boys much older than him, we were not sure how he would do.  All dens in the pack competed against each other this year.  As it turned out, his little Bullet Bill car was pretty smoking fast and won his first 4 races.  According to his average speed in the first round, he was the 6th fastest out of the 34 registered cars.  He won two races by a large margin, the other two were very close.  In his first race , one of those close ones, he beat the car that later won 2nd place overall.  In the other close race, he beat last year's champion, but in Ben's last round it was that car and the car that ultimately went undefeated to win1st place that knocked him out.  Both cars belonged to boys 2 and 3 years older and were ranked 1st and 2nd in terms of average miles per hour.  So we were very proud of Ben's effort.  I worked a post at the finish line, so Ben's papa held him up for me at the starting gate so that Ben could place his car on the track.  Those early rounds when all the kids were still super excited were a lot of fun.  Click here for a video of Ben's car racing and here for a fun video of Ben building his car. 

Bullet Bill in action (5MBs)