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Pinewood Derby Stories and Photos from Maximum Velocity
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PINEWOOD DERBY CAR SHOWCASE
Roadster - Harry Brill Joey, age 9, has always been a car guy since he was very small. He has an extensive hot wheels collection including some of the cars I saved from when I was his age. He's been drawing cars for years. This year he told me he wanted to "go for looks", although he still wanted the car to be fast. He drew a very detailed hot rod and my old hot wheels car came immediately to my mind. I asked him if he could find it and he brought it right out. We measured the car with a 6 inch ruler and scaled it up at first, but the wheel base was about an inch shorter than the maximum allowed so we stretched it a bit. Joey is very detail oriented so we went to the hobby shop and looked at model cars to find an engine. He was very picky, but we finally found one he liked. As far as Joey is concerned, the bigger the "blower", the better! The dash, door panels, and window glass were also "stolen" from the model and modified with the belt sander to fit. The windshield frame is a piece of 12ga electric wire, and the seat was cut out of a piece of scrap. Joey cut the car on a band saw and scroll saw, and I routed the engine bay and weight pocket. We admittedly shared the sanding, as Joey doesn't like to sand much. Joey picked the paint, and said he wanted flames. We thought we would just print up some flames on transparent stickers, but they wouldn't show up so we painted them with mom's acrylic paints. We also put on a few coats of acrylic clear spray. Joey prepared his axles by removing the mold marks, and I sanded them. The wheels this year were a matched set of official BSA wheels with no machining. We squared up and polished the bores with micro-gloss and that's it! Joey didn't place in the top 3, but he really loves his car, and he had a good time and a great attitude. In the process he continued to learn how to use power tools, solve problems, and the best part, I got to spend time with him.
1970 Mustang Mach 1 - J. Gravely This 1970 Mustang Mach 1 was the last car built by my youngest son and I for his last race as a Cub scout. The car came in second place for the Webelos in the district. The entire car is made with only pieces we found around the house.
Humvee - Paul Smith I built this Humvee for the adult division in our church Awana Grand Prix. Its performance was somewhat mediocre, but the fun for me is building them. It weighed 5.0 ounces on the dot. With the exception of the thin wire I used for the antenna, everything else was cut and carved from pine.
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
