Pinewood Derby

This is serious business. Forget that it's just a bunch of kids racing tiny little wooden cars on an aluminum track. Oh NO. It's much more than that. These people mean business. And, by "these people", I mean the parents. There are 6 lanes on the track, and each car races once per lane. So, essentially, every car races 6 times and they average those times to make one final time per car. (and since there were 150 cars there, it took FOR-EV-ER) *sigh* I hope this is making sense. Once the car reaches the finish line, an electronic sensor tells the computer what times each car finished, and the computer displays the winner and times for each car. All of this is displayed on a projection for all to see. Now, each car is allowed 5 oz. That's it. If the car weighs over 5 oz, it's disqualified. So, the goal is to get as much weight as you can on the cars without going over because the weight is what makes it pick up speed. So, people buy weights, bring their drills, glue, whatever and adjust their cars right before the race begins. Also, and this is a VERY big must, graphite apparently is used on the wheels to make them spin faster. For REALS. Doug knew all of this and supped up Jared's car 5 minutes before it raced. And, so did the rest of the parents. Let me just say this, at least Jared painted his own car. I'm willing to bet a whole bunch of chocolate that many of those poor tiger cubs didn't even TOUCH theirs. Yep. It's all about the parents and pinewood-derby-speed-racer-glory. Jared came in 6th out of 18 in his division.