Tuesday, March 8, 2011

redemption in a car

Jonah has redeemed himself.  Last year at the annual cub scout pinewood derby, his car came in last almost every race.

This year, his car was fast.  He won race after race and out of 50+ boys, came in 2nd overall.  He was thrilled.

Mark cannot explain the win, as he thinks they did everything about the same both years. Hopefully he will figure out what he did differently because we have 10 more pine wood derbies to look forward to.  He is very happy for Jonah this year. It is almost redemption for his own cub scout days when his mom tole painted flames on his first car and they didn't know they could use weights and graphite.
#22, second from left.
The difference between 1st, 2nd and 3rd places was 1/100th of a second.
Cool winner's trophy: his car mounted atop a wrench.

10 comments:

Nancy said...

congrats Jonah! I'm loving those trophies I think I should show this to my cubmaster. Too cute.

amyraye said...

congrats to Jonah! a big deal in a boy's life.
still laughing about the tole-painted flames. sounds like something my mom would've done. :)

Gray Family said...

Jeff has bad memories of the derby too. Maybe I should send him to a couple to get pointers before Nate gets to race.

Jennifer said...

Those cars are beauties. Really, so nice. And Jonah is so cute! This story makes me laugh, remembering the first time I met Mark and he told us of the jumpsuit his Mom sewed for him in middle school. Do I have that right? I seem to recall it being orange with a long, pointy collar? All I know is, the tole-painting added up with the jumpsuit story. Too funny. And I'm really happy for Jonah!

Cathy said...

Woo hoo! That's awesome. I grew up in a family of all girls so all this pinewood derby stuff is foreign to me. Looks like fun though!

abby said...

that is a cool trophy! it is with much relief that i think of the scouting days ahead and how jamie will love doing all that stuff. i'll leave the tole painting to him.

amyegodfrey said...

Jonah, you are the cutest and smartest champion ever! Congratulations! I love the tole painting story. I want to hear Mark tell it again.

erin said...

Congrats to Jonah! Those are awesome trophies. PS- you can add me to the list of people who love the tole-painted derby car story! Hey, it was the 80's after all...

Unknown said...

That is a sweet trophy. Do you know what was used to mount it to the wood block and how it was mounted to the car? I am in charge of out stake Derby and I would love to do these!

Thanks!
-Tara

Sarah said...

Tara,
I am looking at it right now. They used a "1 1/2 inch Brace Zinc" (ACE Hardware item #5289947) to secure the wrench to the wood block. A slit, or hole, was cut in the wood for the brace to go through it. Then the wrench was screwed to the brace.
They used some kind of putty/clay that dried hard to attach the tips of the wrench to a piece of thin metal (about 3/4 inch x 4 inches).
Then some kind of super industrial strength sticky piece to attach the car to that metal plate.
It looks so much less complicated that it is, doesn't it?