So, tomorrow is my first Pinewood Derby that I’m in charge of, responsible for, however it’s best to think about it. I’ve helped out with two in the past, but others took care of all the planning. Right now, looking towards it, I can say I’m looking forward to it being done.
As much as the event itself is basically dropping cars down a ramp, it turns out there’s a lot more that goes into it from a preparation perspective. There are the trophies that have to be ordered. There are room arrangements that have to be made. There are people that have to be coordinated before the event for setup, during the event for running it, and after the event for cleanup. We have to come up with car rules for everyone to build their cars according to. We have to come race rules to handle fuzzy cases like ties or cars jumping their track (it does happen.) I’ve probably missed a few things, but it’s pretty obvious that dropping cars down a ramp is the easiest part of the whole day.
We have a smaller Pack this year, only 20 or so, so I decided to try an experiment that we hadn’t done in the previous Derbies I’d helped out with. We decided to pre-assign the kids to certain heats and then schedule times for them to get their car inspected and when their heat will race. In past years, we’ve simply opened up the event with the inspection and then waited for everyone to complete inspection prior to starting the race. There was a lot of down time with this method, and we still had multiple heats to run.
The goal with pre-assigning heats this year was to reduce the congestion at the inspection line. It’s one thing for a set number of people to weigh their cars and try to tune the weight as close to the 5 ounce limit as possible. It’s another for everyone in the Pack trying to do it. The line gets long and some people go back up multiple times attempting to “make weight.” By limiting the number of people who can submit their cars for inspection, we can limit the line length and, hopefully, keep things moving.
Further, once we get the first heat squared away, the second heat will be able to get their cars inspected and ready for their heat. Thus, we create a diversion of sorts that will serve to make the race day seem shorter because there will be something going on almost constantly.
Aside from that, we’ll also have a DVD running showing Herbie the Lovebug or Cars or something like that. Plus, there will be pizza which is always a hit.
I’m fortunate as well in that I’ve got a core group of people who are all capable and more than willing to help out wherever help is needed. No grousing or complaining. That alone makes my job a helluva lot easier.
Come this time tomorrow night, the Derby will be well over with. At least, it had better be. There will be one very happy Scout with bragging rights over everyone else. And there will be one tired Cubmaster, relieved to have it behind him.