Derby Time!

Last night was Hunter's first pinewood derby. He and Jared spent lots of time building his car. Hunter sanded it to perfection and it looked fantastic with it's shiny red paint job. Jared admitted to me that he really didn't know much about pinewood derby cars and he had absolutely no idea if it would come in last or be really fast.

The Red Dragon!

We talked to Hunter about being a good sport and I knew he would be okay if his car didn't do amazingly well, but I really hoped that it wouldn't come in last place. Especially because it was on a night when Jared had class, so it was just me and the kids.

I admit, I was a little uncomfortable with the idea of Jared not being there with us last night. I worried that I might foul things up if the car didn't weigh enough and adjustments had to be made. I read in the rules that if a wheel falls off or something on the car breaks, you have 5 minutes to fix it or the car is disqualified. I'm not sure if my hot glue gun would work for something like that. (I just hoped we didn't have to worry about it.) Mostly, I felt sad for Hunter, not to have his dad there to support him and cheer him on.

Luckily, at the last minute Jared's dad stepped in to save the day! The kids were all thrilled and I felt much more relaxed. You see, Jared's dad had 4 boys and the pinewood derby is something he took very seriously. He's had lots of experience and is somewhat of a pro in my opinion.

I knew if that car needed any attention, Papa was the guy for the job. Ten years ago when we moved to Washington, the stand of my quilting frame that Jared built for me cracked thanks to the movers. Papa took one look at it and said he thought he could figure out a way to fix it.

He put 20 screws through the entire board and you'd better believe that 10 years later, that crack hasn't grown one centimeter. Impressive!

Papa and I talked before the racing started and he told me about the first pinewood derby he did with Jared (who was the oldest). He said he didn't really know what he was doing, but he spent hours working on the car and although it looked really nice, it came in last place. He told me that the look on Jared's face was so incredibly sad, it killed him.

So, he went home and researched, he read books about making pinewood derby cars and called all over looking for special car parts and materials. He was determined to never let that happen again.

Now I really hoped that Hunter's car did okay. I didn't want Papa to have to re-live that moment from his first pinewood derby with Jared.

Here are all the cars, lined up and ready to go.

And they were off. I was taking pictures with my phone so this is the best I got, that first red blur you see is Hunter's car! His car took first in almost every race it ran until they narrowed the racing down to the final four cars.

Overall he won 3rd place and he also got an award for the smoothest finish.

I know it's not about winning and I'm pretty sure that Hunter would have been just fine if his car wouldn't have done as great (Papa too), but doing well is really fun! At one point Papa and I were watching Hunter from a distance, he was holding his car and dancing around excitedly waiting for his next turn. I'm glad that Papa was able to be there with us . I sent Jared a picture of Hunter holding up his little trophy. When he got my text (during class) and saw the picture he said he wanted to shout out he was so excited!