Pinewood Derby – Do Your Best?
It's Pinewood Derby season for Cub Scouts, and it's the first time I've met this from the parent side. I did it once as a kid, but I don't recall actually doing anything... I'm pretty sure my dad built the whole thing while I watched. (Funny, I don't remember being in Cub Scouts or Webelos, but I remember the Pinewood Derby... my car is still around here somewhere.)
Anyway, that's always been a problem with PWD... it's really a challenge for a second or third-grader to do most of the work and turn out something good. Many of them have never touched a saw, sandpaper, block plane or anything out in the woodshop. (And many of them don't have a woodshop at home, either.) So when it comes to PWD crunch-time, dad's thinking about winning... about how disappointed his son's going to be with his second-grade attempt at building a car that comes in twenty-third, when every kid just knows that his beauty is going to win. And dad's concerned because he knows that "every other dad" is doing most of the work, so letting his son Do His Best puts him at a disadvantage.
So being the good dad and Den Leader, my plan was to arm my son with as much teaching and guidance as I can, and let him really do all the work. I got my own car for the Adult Outlaw race on which to vent my need for perfection. (And I'll probably hide it from Nathan so he can't compare his to mine.) So wanting to get off to a good start, I went looking for tips.
I found more than tips. I found cheats. Not just "here's how to modify the car illegally without getting caught." You can go buy a completed car on eBay for about a hundred bucks or so by people who have built over a hundred winning cars... guaranteed Boy Scouts of America legal. Except in the one place it really counts... built by the boy who's racing it.
Now, if you can't bring yourself to just buy your son a car, you can spend thirty to fifty dollars to buy a set of modified wheels and axles. Oh, they're OFFICIAL BSA wheels and axles, of course... wheels turned on a lathe to remove material (lighter is better) and do everything possible that isn't likely to be detected (a lot of the rules about not modifying the wheels involve friction-reduction techniques that only an adult is going to be able to do accurately). You can get OFFICIAL axles with grooves cut in them to reduce friction, where the grooves can't be seen without disassembling the car. You can buy nickle-plated, pre-polished axles.
Now, there are lots of "gravity driven car" competitions out there, many of them just for fun, where anything goes... but these are all sold as being made from OFFICIAL BSA components and appearing to be stock components. The only reason for them to be made from official BSA components is to compete in official BSA competitions... for fathers to help their Cub Scouts cheat.
I can't imagine spending $50 to help my son win a competition so he can have a trophy he didn't earn. But apparently there are plenty of fathers who are willing, because I counted at least five of these companies out there selling modified parts.
But even if all these modifications were legal (some are, some aren't; the rules are local to the Units), the point of the PWD is for the Cub Scout to Do His Best. I don't think buying machine-modified parts is teaching the right ethics, especially in an organization that is shaping young boys to be good men.
This isn't about doing whatever it takes to win... winning isn't the point. Playing the game, Doing Your Best, and winning or losing gracefully... that's the point.
I lost my one PWD race when I was a kid. I don't remember how I felt about losing... I'm sure I was disappointed, but I don't think it was any big deal. And in retrospect, I'm glad I didn't, because I didn't build that car myself. Imagine how a kid must feel when he wins a District championship with a car his daddy bought on eBay for $150. What right does a father have to steal his son's chance at winning for himself? When my son races, whether he wins or loses, I want him to be proud of his car, because he built it himself.