5 Tips To Winning A Pinewood Derby Race

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It’s that time of year again…Pinewood Derby time! Any other readers here with cub scouts?

For those who don’t know what the Pinewood Derby is, it’s an annual derby race in cub scouts. The scouts are given a block of wood and they carve that wood into a car that they race on a derby track. 

There are a few rules to follow in order to compete in the Pinewood Derby competition:

1. The car’s weight shall not exceed 5.0 ounces. The official race scale shall be considered final.
2. The overall length of the car shall not exceed 7 inches.
3. The overall width of the car shall not exceed 2 ¾ inches.
4. The maximum height of the car cannot exceed 5 inches.
5. The car must have 1 ¾” clearance between the wheels.

The Pinewood Derby is a big deal in our family. Maybe we’re a little over-competitive; we like winning. My husband is very into scouting (he’s an Eagle Scout) and my dad has been a Cub Scout Master and a Boy Scoutmaster over the years, so he looks forward to participating with his grandsons every year. We have gone to watch my nephews race their cars, and they are usually here to watch Cody. Sadly, Grandpa was out of town working this week, so he missed our Pinewood Derby, but we made sure to send him videos and updates!

This is my oldest son’s third year participating in the Pinewood Derby. The first year, he had a cool looking car and it was fast, but he didn’t place. Last year, he only lost his races to one car, which meant he finished second. He had his grandpa and cousins cheering for him on the sidelines and it was an exciting win. This year, they decided to race them by packs; the Wolves raced the Wolves, the Bears raced the Bears, and the Webelos raced the Webelos. Cody was determined to take home a first place trophy. He didn’t care what his car looked like, so long as it was fast!

There’s a little bit of a learning curve to figure out how to get a fast derby. Some boys go for looks; they want to have the sleekest looking car on the track. I love seeing the different designs that the boys come up. We have seen some pretty cool cars in our day! We’ve seen Bat Mobiles and busses and we even had the Titanic on the track last night. Like I said, Cody wanted speed this year. Sometimes the coolest cars are the slowest, so Jeff and Cody decided to keep it simple this year.

Too simple, in fact. I thought it looked a little boring to be honest, and I had my doubts that his car was going to turn out to be the fastest. I should’ve never doubted my Eagle Scout, engineer husband. Sure enough, Cody’s car flew down that track! He took home 1st place in his pack (Webelos) and 2nd place overall. He was disappointed to not win the Grand Championship, but at least he took home that 1st place trophy.

And by the way, can we just talk about how cute these awards are? Our Cub Scout Masters were so creative; they made awards that they could hang on their walls with their cars attached!

Check out that speed!!

Here are a few tips that we’ve learned along the way in getting a fast car (the credit goes to Jeff for helping me with these tips because let’s be real, he’s the one doing the work with Cody):

Tip #1: Aerodynamics are key! Add as many rounded edges you can. Sand down the corners and edges. This will give you less air friction. Straight edges will drag the car down.

Tip #2: The weight placement will have a huge effect on your car’s center of gravity (COG). The center of gravity of your pinewood derby car is the distance that the balance point of the car is in front of the rear axles. Many people simply tell you to just “put the weight in the back”. While that is true, there is a lot more involved in this process. Proper placement of the COG is crucial in order to have a fast car. The balance point should always be in front of the rear axles and is usually between 1 to 2 inches.

These are the weights we used and you can see in the picture above where they strategically placed them.

Tip #3: Going along with tip #2, don’t overdo the weights on the bottom of the car. We’ve noticed a lot of cars getting stopped on the tracks because the weights drag too low underneath the car and get caught on the track.

Tip #4 Use graphite on the wheels. It comes as a gray dust and acts as a dry lube for the wheels.

Tip #5 Try sanding down the nail axles. You can also add graphite on the nails.

Don’t forget to grab your pinewood derby graphics!

Have you discovered and tips or tricks to help you win the Pinewood Derby? If so, I wanna hear about it! Comment below.

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