Pinewood Derby 2009 - My Kid's Cars

Closeup of the wheel well on Kyle's Tank, decal cut back for the wheel to spin freely.

"Proof" photo after adjusting the weights, just before the wheels are installed.

Zach's Kewl Skateboard came in a little light since we removed so much wood from the block.

After a little creative drilling and screws, we're right up to the 5.0 ounce limit.

The tool of choice for creating a well for the weights to fit in...
The Dremel Destructor. ;-D

A closeup of what we did with the Pinecar weights to get it right.

Here's the three completed cars out in the sunshine.

This indoor shot is a little bit better.

I really liked how Kyle's Tank turned out, and it ended up winning award
for most original design! It was fun. The decals on the sides and ends
were created on an old Corel Draw (version 7) and printed on light cardstock.

We used Pinecar© rub-on decals for Zach's Kewl Skateboard, and I think
they turned out pretty good. Zach had fun applying the decals with a pencil.

I moved his car into the beam of sunlight coming in the shop window.

Here's a little better profile-type pic.

Ok, so I had to sneak in a photo of the Galileo Shuttlecraft-car.
I again printed these from Corel 7 onto cardstock. Used "FederationHull"
for the font and found a weird (but not exact) font for the word "Galileo".

The engines I made from wooden dowel, trimmed the leads off some common
red LED's and stuck then into the porous ends of the dowels. Wings are
balsa, which might have turned out better if I had sanded and sealed them.
I did overcoat the entire thing with ClearCote©.

An actual 'profile' shot.

I haven't quite figured out why they display the cars this method at the race
but it seems to work to keep them from rolling off the table. That's a single
width track piece in the middle, bracketed by 2 each 1x4's.

Brogan's car (middle) had not only a neat design, but an airbrush spray job
which faded from white to red - it's a little hard to see in the photo, but
it looks great.

First year for custom color wheels to make their way into the local races.

This is the "Open Division" lineup. See the penguin car? I liked that design
a lot. There is a very cool and well painted black car to the left of it, but
it's hard to see in this photo.

The dragon design is well-painted, a very neat car design!

Trophies and medals waiting to be won.

This is the Tiger Division, I liked the American Flag 'skin' paint job.

Cubmaster John stars the first Tiger Division race.
Sorry, I would include a lot more race pictures, but for some reason,
we had our camera set to 'Portrait' instead of 'Sports' and most of the
pictures are very, very blurry :-(

Kyle wins the ribbon for Most Original Design with his Tank.