Second Place

The Pinewood Derby is an annual event in which all Boy Scouts participate, I believe. Grady's pack had their derby last Saturday night. You would not believe how official everything was!

Each boy had to register and weigh their car (it had to be under 5 ounces.) Each car had a "number" and ran a race on each of the four lanes. The officials then averaged out the times so that there wasn't a lane advantage.

The great thing with the race was that it was computerized! They placed the cars on the ramp and when they released them, it started the timer. When the cars crossed the finished line, it stopped the timer, giving a time for each car as well as calculating the winner in a spreadsheet. They also had displayed who was in each race as well as the names for the next race. It was very well organized and went quickly!

Grady came in second place in his first race, and then first in the other three - so he got 2nd place over all out of 10! He was so proud of his trophy! Incredibly, the top two racers get to go to "regionals" in two weeks with the winners of Pinewood Derbies from three counties! WOW! He is so excited!!

We'll keep you posted about the big race! We'll hopefully have pictures of it as well since we forgot to bring our camera to his first race. Stephen said it was adorable seeing him go up and get his trophy. He was running and smiling! I wish I had that on film.