This past weekend, for those of you who were fortunate enough to miss
it, was (at least in my area) the Cub Scouts Pinewood Derby.
This annual event was actually once rated as one of the 100 greatest things about America (
Reader's Digest magazine, 2006). I can only assume that the author had never been involved in one, or that in 2006 the country had absolutely gone to hell.
The
point of this "friendly competition" is to build little cars and race
them down a slanted track. Each 8-11 year old is given a standardized
block of wood and 4 wheels, and can do what they want with them.
Since the stakes are so high (winner gets a plastic trophy from Big
Lots), the cars are carefully examined, weighed, and locked away 3
days before the race. This is to make sure that illegal modifications,
like adding a jet engine, aren't carried out.
The
whole part about this being a competition among the boys is absolute
BS. It's between their testosterone charged fathers, living
vicariously through the kids. Dads build the cars, and (occasionally)
let junior make a few finishing touches (like putting a Pokemon decal
on).
Of course, no one actually admits to this. So at
each derby one of the finest moments is when the person in charge
brings in the cars from the nuclear-bomb proof hiding location, and
boys go ask dad which car is theirs. "Oh! That's mine? Cool job, Dad!"
(In our family, it's actually Mrs. Grumpy who does all this. I'm just a shill).
You can always tell the ones that the boys actually made
themselves
because they have uneven paint jobs, strange angles, and an odd
number of wheels. Of course, they never win a race, because they're no
match for the ones that some dad, who by day designs jet fighters for
Lockheed, built (and claimed his kid did, using a wind tunnel testing
facility that's coincidentally in the basement).
They ask you to arrive at 6:00 p.m. SHARP, which is a joke. The races
never start on time.
So we arrived at the Wingnut Elementary School cafeteria at exactly 6:00, to find they'd
just started
setting up. To lend atmosphere (and help us forget that we were in a
school cafeteria) some guys were hanging racing posters and pennants
everywhere. A bunch of moms were off in one corner setting up a bake
sale. And, most importantly, several dads were putting up the racing
track, grading it with a computerized angle & level measuring
device, as if it were made of gold.
While this is going
on, to get you in a cheerful mood, they show fun racing moments on a
large screen: cars and drivers in gory high-speed wrecks, flaming
rocket boats hurtling out-of-control into screaming crowds, Indy cars
exploding as they fuel up, and other humorous stuff.
Finally
the races begin. This is kicked off by them blasting early 90's dance
music. So if you've had a burning desire to hear C & C Music
Factory, M.C. Hammer, and (not early 90's)
ENDLESS replays of "The History of Rock & Roll, part 2"*, this is
the place to be.
Each
race features 4 cars, and they run them 3-4 times each, changing
lanes each time. The race itself takes 5-10 seconds. Then they
hand-carry the cars back to the starting point. Each is then
reinspected (to make sure their owner didn't, say, use a blowgun to
secretly attach a V8 engine while they were going down the track),
carefully returned to the starting gate, and we begin again. And in
the background 2 guys are still busy putting up racing poster
decorations.
The race results are presented on a
constantly-changing computerized time sheet, projected on the wall.
This, I swear, measures finishing times TO SIX DECIMAL PLACES (i.e.
5.756381 seconds). Because, you know, that kind of space-travel level of
precision is absolutely necessary when small wooden blocks are rolling
down a track. And the dads obsessively stare at this like it's a topless
dancer, while the kids play their Nintendo DS.
At some
point your kids come to you asking for money. Why? Because they're
selling pizza and various other junk food. They even asked you to
bring something, because it's "for a good cause" (they never tell you
what the good cause is. For all I know it's Botox for the counter
lady). So you stop at Costco, pick up a HUGE box of Oreos, and give
them to her. The Oreos are then marked up to 50 cents each, and the
box is now worth more than an equivalent amount of plutonium. We
discovered it was best to feed the kids before leaving our house, and
making sure we have nothing but credit cards when we get there. "They
only take cash? Sorry, kids."
This insanity goes on for 3-4
freakin' hours.
Most people start to leave as soon as their kid is disqualified from
the finals, but some parents (due to, say, their wives secretly
signing them up to be involved in taking apart the damn track and not
telling you about it until you ask if you can leave yet, for example)
are stuck there until the bitter end. So you tap your feet and watch 2
guys continue to heroically put up racing posters.
Toward
the end you start looking for something to do. Like helping the
school janitor put away the folding chairs (he wants to go home, too).
So if anyone stands up, you grab their chair and toss it in the
closet, hoping they weren't planning on sitting down again. I figured
if anyone fell and hurt themselves, I could hand out business cards.
Finally,
it's over. If your kid didn't win, you don't care who did. As you're
leaving, you notice the 2 guys are finally finishing putting up the
last racing poster.
*Kind of ironic considering how Gary Glitter ended up, eh?
