Pinewood Derby!

Ladies and gentlemen, take your seats! The race is about to begin! But before the cars are lined up and the lever is pulled, let's journey back in time a bit to see how we got here...

As any scout mom knows, a pinewood derby event begins long before race day--in our case, months before. Lawrence got his car kit back in March, but there was no date for the race set. Even so, we took initiative and started to get to work on his car. Back in April, the same weekend as the quarry climbing in Sacramento, we brought that pinewood derby car kit to Uncle Weston's house... for he is endowed with many woodworking tools, yea, saws of all kinds hath he in the garage. 

 Lawrence sanding his axles on the drill press! Perfectly safe, I assure you.

 And here's Lawrence cutting his car shape out on the band saw, which is a significantly scarier instrument...

But don't worry, daddy's fingers are there to take the fall if something should go wrong...

The sisters of the cub scout hanging around that day could not resist trying to tell Larry what he should do to make his car fancy and awesome! Larry was not particularly interested in their wild ideas. But thanks again to Uncle Weston, he found scraps around the garage and helped each of my girls design and cut their own cars. 

Dawna made an awesome pickup truck. Xochitl designed a classic race car with fins going up the back and everything. Jade wanted a little truck, and so she got a little half-sized flat bed to call her own. The cars got painted; we ordered extra pinewood derby car wheels for the girls' cars, and waited for a date to be set for the big day!

Finally, June 3 was date decided upon. But there was just one minor problem... our troop had no pinewood derby track. 

Somehow, I volunteered myself to find out what track the other troops around the stake had used and where they were stored and figure out how to get one.  My phone scavenger hunt led from Becca S. to Jeff A. to this guy named Larry S. 

Larry S. was an electrical parts store owner in Fremont, getting ready to retire and downsize his shop. Way back when, he was involved in cub scouts and had stored in his shop for many years a pinewood derby track.  

And as it just so happens, our troop was on the hunt for one at the same time that he was trying to get rid of it. Perfect! And so it was that literally one week before our pinewood derby, I went to pick up a very fine hand-crafted track, along with loads of other goodies such as a winner's podium, cones, signs, and all manner of decorations. 

All in all, thanks to Larry, S., we actually had a very nice pinewood derby. Had it not been for this fortuitous meeting, our derby would have been much less fancy... or may not have happened at all... Our little troop of ten boys was delighted by the event. The following Sunday, one of the boys even gave the event a "five star" rating.

So, was this meeting Larry S. and finding a track at just the right moment a miracle? Well, that might be too strong a word to use. I sometimes like to call it a stroke of "guk," (rhymes with luck) meaning God Understands and Knows. He understood what we needed and understood how the parents and leaders of the troop were doing their best. And He knew how to align the timing to fill the needs of both parties. God indeed Understands and Knows what we need.  As we are obedient, He'll nudge, align, and arrange things to make our life just a little easier. And that's what happened with this pinewood derby track thing...

So in the end, Troop 197 got to have their pinewood derby. Lawrence, with some assistance from dad's YouTube research on how to weight cars and bend axles, got second place for speed out of the ten boys!

And after the event, many many races were carried on late into the night! Fun times on the race track! Can't wait for next year's derby... and this time, we won't have to go on a wild hunt for a track :)