Overview

Follow along with Dash Derby as he guides you through the daring world of Pinewood Derby. Use this workbook along with the book Getting Started in Pinewood Derby to learn the basics of building a Derby Car. Check out all the cool ideas and pick a few to make your car look awesome! Then, work through the set-up sections and record your progress along the way. After all the hard work is done, you can glue pictures of your speedy car right into this book and record your memories of the race so you'll never forget. Stick with Dash and these guides, and you'll have an awesome car built in no time.

Full Product Details

9781565237346

Table of Contents

Reviews

This last weekend my neighbor and his son (age 7) invited my son, Decker (almost 5), to come and watch his Cub Scout Pinewood Derby race. If you're not familiar with this event, the Cub Scouts host a race every year where the participants take a standard block of wood and four plastic wheels and turn it into a pure racing machine or something else. It's been over 30 years for me, but I still remember my dad taking me out into the workshop and helping me use his bandsaw and sander to carve up my own car, #87. It wasn't much to look at, but it was mine. It still sits on a bookshelf in my office as a reminder of not only the race but also the time I spent with my dad at a very young age, learning to use some basic woodworking tools. Decker isn't quite old enough yet for the Cub Scouts, but he absolutely loved looking at the 100+ cars sitting on display for the judges to examine and weigh. All cars must weigh less than 5 ounces, but racers try to hit as close to 5 ounces as possible because the weight of the car affects its speed when it is released on the downward-pointing ramp. There were a lot of interesting solutions to getting the cars up in weight (the block weighs about 1.4 ounces and the wheels and paint add enough to bring it up to about 4.3 ounces so there's some wiggle room for embellishment and personalization of a racer's vehicle.) Races this day were performed 4 cars at a time. To ensure fairness, multiple races were performed with each car racing on a different track (1, 2, 3, or 4); I'm guessing this is done because maybe one or more tracks run faster or have a better/smoother surface. Whatever the reasons, each scout gets to see his car race multiple times. Awards were given out for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place finishes for different troops/ages as well as some design awards. In addition to taking my son, I also took along a set of 4 books provided to me by Fox Chapel Publishing that relate to the Pinewood Derby. I passed the books around to the various scout

Author Information

Pinewood Derby-winning dad Troy Thorne is a graduate of Savannah College of Art and Design, and spent over 10 years in the advertising field. He is an active scouting volunteer, builds furniture and canoes, and works with his son who was a national finalist in the All-Star Derby Design Contest.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available