02
03
Pinewood Derby Stories and Photos from Maximum Velocity
04
05
15
16
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
31
32
33
34
PINEWOOD DERBY CAR SHOWCASE
2007 Corvette Pace Car - Dave Noble For this 2007 Corvette Pace Car I began with a plastic model and installed a pinewood frame with ball bearing wheels. Then I used the original Corvette wheels as hubcaps that do not spin. I can twist the front wheels which in turn will turn the slightly bent axles to steer the car straight. It is pretty fast, but I lost one exhaust pipe at the last race.
Here is a picture of my real pace car. It is the 3rd lowest VIN# and was delivered to the Indianapolis 500 in 2007.
Home Depot Nascar - Chris & Jared Mahar To build this Nascar, we added wood onto the sides. This increased the overall front profile of the car over what it would have been if we'd used the solid block of wood, so it wasn't aerodynamic at all. The four cars that beat us in the district race were all sleek low profile jobs, but we didn't lose by much. Perhaps in this case aerodynamics would have made a difference.
Because we were copying a Nascar we had to leave the wheelbase more forward in the car than I would have liked. It was still rear- weighted, but the center of gravity was about 0.75 inches further forward than if we had pushed the wheelbase back as far as it will go.
I had to hollow out the block of wood a lot to get weight out of the front of the car. We used about 2.5 ounces of tungsten in the rear, and trimmed with lead wire. Since we routed out a lot of wood in the front, there were big holes in the bottom, so we sheeted over them with 1/64th plywood.
We used images of the actual Nascar from the Internet. For the body we used an orange paint, made some of our own stickers, and purchased the 'sponsor' stickers from a Pinecar rack at our local hobby shop. Painting involved a lot of masking. Some of the black stripes were drawn on with a sharpie after masking. Headlights were hand-painted. Once all the stickers were on, we covered with a clear coat.
Pink VW - Breeley Blaylock One of my scout's sister, her father and I built this VW for the pinewood derby. It took us about three hours to cut it out. We made a few mistakes, but finally got it right. We had to cut out the windows on each side, and hollow the bottom to reduce the weight to five ounces.
The Car Showcase is a regular feature of the Pinewood Derby Times Newsletter. To subscribe to this free e-newsletter, please visit: www.maximum-velocity.com/subscribe.htm
