Elder's Quorum Pinewood Derby

Well, the Pinewood Derby was AWESOME! I have to admit, it went even better than I thought it would. What a great night! There was a lot that went into this and it all started with my car. Optimus really turned out great. I'm not sure how many hours went into this project, but it sure was worth it.

Getting the track was quite the experience, but "Jack the Track" came through and got us all set up. I'm pretty sure that track is like Jack's child... He sure does love that thing. But for loving it so much he sure didn't take very good of lane 3... (I'll get to that in a second.) So yeah, we had the track, we had the trophies, we had a great selection of soups and rolls, and it was great.

We had 14 cars show up! Not bad at all. We had a cow car, Lightning McQueen, the Mystery Machine, and even a car with a fan mounted on the top and one with a balloon! Quite the selection to be sure. We assigned everyone a random number to determine the bracket seeding and then voted for a the Best-in-Show prize. Tim's "Wet Willy" Jeep and trailer won top honors, beating Optimus Prime by two votes.

The racing was epic. We set everyone up in a bracket and let 'em roll! Optimus was killing it! I had only won one, yes, ONE race in my entire Pinewood Derby career and Optimus brought the speed for the first two races. I was lined up against the balloon car and I was actually winning the race! The balloon, when inflated, would push the exhaust pipes on my car and that helped keep me even with it until it deflated. My car weighed more so I was pulling away... until disaster struck. Lane 3. Cursed lane 3... There was a notch out of the track in lane 3 and my car hit it, and lost a wheel!! Yep. Optimus lost a wheel. As one little kid said at the finish, "He started to transform too early!" Hahaha. So that's how my Pinewood Derby dreams were dashed again.

The rest of the races were good. The fan car dominated everyone else in the races. That car was FAST! There was a battery pack to charge it and even with a 2 feet head start no car could catch it. The balloon car would go on to take 2nd and the torpedo car would take 3rd. In the end, no trophies for the shelf, but everyone had a great time. Looks like we'll have to do it again soon! I'm thinking a panzer for the next car... one to blow up the fan car! Or lane 3...