Pinewood Derby

Wow. Just.... WOW. I don't even know how to start. As stated in a previous Blog entry, I am new at the whole Scouting thing. I vaguely remember going to one of my brother's pinewood derbies as a kid. When David was asked to run it, he asked for my help. Knowing I would be there anyway to watch Harris compete, of course I will! So I signed in all the cars/kids and kept the scoring. You would think that the kids being TOTALLY hyped up about watching their own car creations hurl down the track would have been the worst part. Nope. The parents that were involved were AMAZINGLY difficult. I am really trying to use my "nice words" here. When I say difficult, I mean, first... I don't think 75% of those boys had ever even seen their cars before. The boys are supposed to make their own cars, from the whittling down of the wood, to the paint, etc. Some of these cars looked as if they could have been on "Pimp My Ride". We had people FULL on cheating, from using NON-regulated car parts, to adding extra weight to the car, and more. AND, while keeping score, I had people (mostly Dads, but a few Mom's as well) insinuating that I wasn't keeping score correctly. Like I would cheat. Look, my son took 2nd to last, if I was gonna cheat, I WOULD MAKE HIM WIN, PEOPLE!!!

Anyway, this was insanity at it's best. I honestly have never seen anything like it. I hope I don't again. Poor Harris was devastated about the fact that the car that won had less than standard parts. He didn't think it was fair. And, it wasn't... but Harris learned a good lesson, that it's about spending time with his Dad making the car, spending time with friends racing them, and being fair. I told him I thought he was definitely the winner.