"A Day at the Races," or "Cannonball Run"

I've never been much of a "handy" sort of guy.  I don't know my way around plumbing, I couldn't tell you how many times I nearly lost a finger in Woodshop Class back in 8th grade.  All in all, I'm not the sort of dad one turns to when a woodworking project is afoot.

Fortunately, my step-dad, John, is, and so he's the guy I turned to when we learned that Alayna's Brownie troop would be participating in the 2016 Midland area Pinewood Derby Race.

To her credit, Alayna designed the car herself, fashioned after one of those obnoxious Minions characters, and ended up painting 90%, too.  When we showed up to some Lutheran church on St. Andrews Street for the actual races, we saw that quite a large majority of the cars present clearly weren't made by children.  Now, of course, our car definitely had some adult input go into it:  John shaped the car himself (call me crazy, but I don't necessarily trust the Cannonball with a table saw), and he adjusted the weight to make it as heavy as possible, yet still within the 5 oz limit.  But Alayna participated in the entire process, which she was insistent upon from the get-go.

What we ended up with was a formidable pinewood car that outperformed most of the other cars in its class.

Behold. . .

The girls position themselves near the finish line of the race track (Abby's not wearing her vest because the Daisies didn't participate in these races.)

We showed up about 45 minutes early, which was awesome because we snagged front-row seats and the place soon became standing-room only (I was definitely glad I grabbed a mono-pod and a telephoto lens.)

Gossip among the brownies.

This was a pretty hardcore track set up they had going on here.  The cars were assigned a color (here, Alayna's car was racing on the Yellow Track.)  Each track has a digital trigger that starts a stopwatch, hooked up to a computer, that stops once the car crosses a second trigger at the end of the track.  The time is then displayed next to the racer's name, along with their placement in the run.  

Each girl scout would end up racing four times throughout the course of the evening, and their times were averaged together.

Alayna would end up racing twice within the first twenty minutes, then not race again for nearly an hour.  She finished third place the first time (while on the Yellow Track) and second place the second time (racing on the Green, shown here.)

Making the social rounds

For us spectators, this got pretty boring.  John and I passed the time by keeping an eye on the girls' times, as the racers were broken up into age categories in order to keep the races remotely fair.

Alayna's third race ended up happening twice, as they had some kind of a computer glitch that failed to record the race times the first time through.  Coincidentally, it was the only time throughout the evening something like that happened. . . so of course it happened to my kid.

(Alayna's car was on the Red Track for these two races.)

Both times she raced during this particular run she placed first. . . which, in hindsight, I wish the judges would have taken into consideration.

Alayna's time is displayed in the column second from right.

Hours into the races.  We ended up being there about 3 1/2 hours, total.  Thank Jebus this only happens once a year. . .

The last of Cannonball's Runs, this time racing the Blue Line.  Right out of the gate, you can see here, she's beginning to edge ahead of the other cars (which, if you look closely, are mostly an inch tall and weighted for speed.)

Celebrating the end of a long, LONG day at the 'Derby.

Announcing the winners in multiple categories (you can see Alayna at right in the vest.)  They gave 1st, 2nd and 3rd place awards in each age bracket, plus a consolation prize for most patriotic, funniest design, and most creative (unfortunately, these three prizes were out of all of the combined age groups, not per age group.) Competition was pretty fierce this year, and unfortunately Alayna didn't get a trophy (although, to be honest, from what John and I figured out by averaging the times, Alayna definitely placed in the top 5 for speed.)

As far as those other consolatory awards go, there were a few minions cars on hand, so her car - despite being one of the more prolific in her age bracket - was lost in the crowd.  Some pretty cool designs to be had, though (an ice cream sandwich, a hot dog, a club sandwich, a pick up truck hauling a Christmas tree, etc.)

The Team

To the Almost Victor Goes the Almost Spoils (. . . in this case, a "Participant" medal.)

- Brian