Pinewood Derby

Last night our Elders' Quorum had a Pinewood Derby. I was pretty excited about the whole thing. I spent a little more than an hour one night this week plotting out what I would make with my block of wood and making very rough cuts with an enormous wood saw by hand on our living room floor, since it was too cold to do it outside. I don't recommend cutting a 2"x1.5" piece of wood this way. Then, I made the next cuts with a jigsaw borrowed from a friend, a utility knife, a drill, and again, a hand saw. I drilled holes in the bottom to put some lead weights in, and accidentally drilled straight through the car, covering the hole with one of the convenient number stickers that came with the car. Here's what I had:

So when I got to the Derby, I weighed my car, and it came in at about half the weight allowed. So, I borrowed a couple weights off of one of the Elders (yes, the Elders were there, with pretty sweet cars too), attached some more weights to the top, and here's the final, intimidating product:

Sadly, after probably 4 hours of working on my car, it came in sixth. It at least got into the final round, but took last out of those cars. And it did better than others that obviously took even more time to create. Of course, what made it disappointing was that a guy who took his unpainted wood block, whittled down the front corners, and taped quarters on the back came in fourth. I want my Saturday back. Here's a picture of the competition, with the winning three cars closest in the foreground:

The Batmobile is an Elder's car. I guess some Elders lift weights with bagfuls of the Book of Mormon, and some make Pinewood Derby cars. To each his own.

If you have any winning Pinewood Derby strategies, please post them for next time around. Happy derbying.