Building Your Perfect Cub Scout Pinewood Derby Race Car

In the last article, your cub scout community laid the groundwork for a smooth fun day full of good memories for your scouts and squirrels at your pack’s Pinewood Derby. Now what are you and your kids going to race?

As a parent who cherishes my kids and wants them to have good, clean fun(WIN)

And learn solid sportsmanship (WIN), not to mention develop skills using (WIN) and respecting tools (WIN), I naturally took over complete control of building the car, the first time we raced in a pinewood derby. Jesus said, “Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.” That was my problem. Since they weren’t really involved in building the car, My kids didn’t have that much fun, learned little about sportsmanship and nothing about tools.

Two other reasons my taking over was a bad idea (Didn’t win – Crash & Burn):

1. I don’t build good pinewood derby cars.

2. Even if I did(Here’s Jesus’ quote), there’s a bazillion people who build them better than me.

Over the past six years, I’ve had cars wheels fall off. Wheels sticking…flatly refusing to roll(Yes, even downhill)They’ve hung up on the track rail. One year, on a tip, I put a drop of penetrating oil on the nail holding the wheel and at the race, a helpful friend added some graphite to reduce friction. Mix graphite and penetrating oil and what to your get…Essentially… Glue. That’s right. I had three sons racing that day. Three races where the glued-on wheels of my kid’s cars never moved when everybody else’s flew down the slope of the track. My younger one actually burst into tears. (Sigh!) That incident was years ago. I’ll be hearing about that from the other leaders when we’re all, in our rocking chairs, retired, sitting on the nursing home porch.

Essentially what I’m saying is, Me writing an article about building good pinewood derby cars is roughly equivalent to Bill Clinton writing about fidelity. Not really sought after advice. Trust me on this – You decide what shape and colors. You decide the theme. You decide where to put the wheels and the weights. Don’t listen to me on those scores.

I want to tell you how my boys are now included in as many aspects as it’s safe to be included in, how they design the shape and colors of the cars, how they even learn to use powered tools when they’re ready. Most importantly, they learn to make something they can be proud of with their own minds and hands. Two years ago, as one of my sons lost a race to a clearly adult-made car, he just shook his head and said, “No way, He (Name Removed) made that car.” He didn’t feel bad about losing to it, since he felt the other guy cheated. He felt he really won the race. Me? Proud? You bet. That’s a hard life lesson to learn. He did win that race.

One den meeting, the scouts and squirrels are issued a two page, Microsoft Word-created handout. The first page has two empty text boxes that each take up half a page. One is labeled side view. The other is labeled top view. Page two has a bunch of pictures of various pinewood derby cars copied and pasted from Google Images. The pictures can be used for ideas or samples of things you can do. In the empty text boxes on page one, the kids design the shape…then the color plan of their car. Their parents guide them in what’s possible and what’s not. Since this planning is all done in the den, in front of everybody, with proud kids bragging about their creations, It virtually eliminates the parents building a wonder car for their kid.

Once each scout/squirrel has a workable template made, they’re issued their official pinewood derby kits, containing a copy of the rules, a block of wood, four nails(axles) and a four wheels. Based on the

Design from the handout, the scout/squirrel and their parent mark the block of wood so a band saw can make the large cuts.

At that meeting or another designated one, our pack sets up a workshop of band saws, sanders and other tools some parents might now own, so no kid is left out in the cold(CAN YOU SAY…COMMUNITY?) because neither his dad nor his mom is a handyman. Each person operating a station takes the time to show each kid just how the machine works and the kid gets final approval of the end result. They decide if the shape is right, if it needs another cut, etc.

The rest is home work. The boys  use sand paper to smooth out the car. If they want drastic changes, I’ll take a dremel tool to it, under their guidance and supervision. On bigger cuts, I do let them handle the tool with me, but that’s a decision for each parent to make. Powered tools have as much potential to be great tools as they do to be great weapons. Be Careful. Then they spread newspapers on the kitchen table and paint away. After a couple of hours to dry, they put a second coat on. Walmart sells a nice selection of stickers that my guys like using. At this stage, once the paint’s thoroughly dry, they decorate with stickers. 24 hours later, they add a coat of polyurethane to make it shiny and slick.

Once that’s done and dry, I head down to post office and use their scale to find out how much weight needs to be added to bring the car just under 5.0 OZ. I usually get my weights from an auto parts store up the street. I use the stick on weight strips, normally used on alloy wheels. Together we’ll use the dremel tool to hollow out a section on the car’s belly to hide the ugly weights out of the way. Some years, we’ve been able to use them as a front or rear spoiler or the light bar on a pinewood derby police car.

Once the weights are attached and painted or not as the case may be, I’ll put on the wheels myself. I Know…I Know…I’m supposed to let the scouts/squirrels do their own work. Remember all the spectacular failures of the past. My kids cars are the most watched event in our packs races. Even the tiger parents like to watch me sweat buckets as my guys approach the roped off racing area, wondering what bizarre and spectacular screw up will happen this year.

Wheel placement is the most tricky thing about building these cars for me. Years ago, I was a certified front end mechanic. I adjusted the wheels to optimum camber, caster and toe(3 Adjustable angles of tires and wheels on a real car.), just as I would have if I was working on a race car. I Mean my wheel placement was cherry! Unfortunately, I wasn’t working on a real race car. It was A PINEWOOD DERBY CAR! Duh.  The sweet angles actually forced the wheels to slice into a wood, creating enough friction slow the car dramatically. Anyway, I learned my lesson and now apply the wheels within the hash marks on the bottom of the cars(Not too close or the wood splits!) and as perfectly straight as possible.

Once the wheels are on, I head back to the post office and ensure that the car doesn’t weigh in over 5.0 OZ. My son's  name and den # go on the bottom and his car is ready to be handed in for registration…Umm, assuming he doesn’t play with it first. In that case we’ll need to add on sufficient cursing and repair time.