Big Fat Wednesday

. . .that's what landed on me. So I'm a little pizz to tha' izzooped just now.

But last night was Max's second Pinecar Derby & I wanted to share the event. If you remember from last year, we did a lot of designing and pretty paint work on his car, but didn't have a scale to tune it with. So his pretty car ended up looking like it had a lead hemmorhoid and some other afterthought pieces of weight stuck to it. In his small Cub Scouts group (where we're very tepid on the whole competition thing. . .but still. . . Daddy's spent the last few years racing toy cars every weekend . . . ) last year he came in 3rd overall.

This year, I dropped the planning/designing ball pretty heinously, so we both spent much effort in the 24 hours leading up to the race to get himself a racecar built! He chose to go with a much simpler design this year, and that allowed us to focus more on the tuning. I did all the homework and guess what? There are a LOT of things you can do to make those things go fast! It was fun, kind of like RC racing but at a miniscule fraction of the cost. In truth, we didn't have time to do most of the (BSA-approved and completely legal of course!) hop-ups.

But in early practice runs, his car was straight-out slaughtering the meek who were fool enough to challenge him (in a very positive, sportsmanlike Boyscouts of America-approved way of course). So Daddy had his completely legal and sportsmanline hopes up :) Once racing commenced he worked his way through the braket, it was a much larger group this year. It came down to the the final race for the winner, between himself and the Bishop's boy. And all testosterone aside, it really didn't matter at that point, he was so high from the winning he got to do already and we'd had our father/son bonding & building already. So ANYway. . . . it was a TIE!!! Hoo, the suspense. They went down the track again, switching tracks this time, and Max's car lost by a half-a-carlength for a second overall. Everyone got "awards", and a patch, so no trophies. But Max did get to wait until second to last to get his. And even though the car didn't meet my exacting aesthetic standards, kids loved the LEGO bits and a couple of Dad's commented that it was a clean build.

OK, chest fully puffed now, making. . . hard. . . to . . .type . . .can't see. . . screen . . . under chest. Here are pix of the event. Last years car, the new car "Mad Max II", his humble medal ceremony (with the Mormon Boy Scout equivalent of trophy girls), and another shot that I thought accurately captured the excitement that is PINEWOOD DERBY!

Plans are underway for Dude-A-Palooza FIVE this weekend! AK will be going to go be a groupie for her favorite knitting blog rock star, The Yarn Harlot. She'll meet with her fellow knit groupies, who happen to be her doting aunts, so she's bringing Evil's Twin Minions of Chaos for them to dote on. With only a 10 year old and a 37 year old dude in this particular palooza, we may try to do some ambitious paloozing. Stay tuned. . .