Cub Scouts Pinewood Derby-how to handle the parents who do anything to win

[maciesmom]

I think what upsets some people are the parents that take the kit to their shop and make the car without much, if any, input from the kid, and emerge, later on, with a shiny cool looking derby car.

Yep....I doubt that anyone has a problem with a car that is the product of a father and son truly working together on it...but there are certainly those situations where the son has very little (if any) input/responsibility for the end result...That is unfair but in the end...it's mostly just sad for the kids whose input gets pushed aside or disregarded in favor of their father's desire to win at all costs...

[formercalifornian]

My suggestion for Packs who are having trouble with this issue is to have a separate competition for the grown-ups and siblings. Sometimes, I think a lot of the problems arise with men who work in a corporate world that thwarts creativity. The derby provides an outlet for all that pent up energy, and who can blame them for wanting to participate. It's fun and exhilarating. After watching all the excitement, I certainly wanted to join in the fun, and you can bet that I'll make my own car for next year's event. I've already planned my design....

[SCGMetroWest]

Originally Posted by maciesmom

Yep....I doubt that anyone has a problem with a car that is the product of a father and son truly working together on it...but there are certainly those situations where the son has very little (if any) input/responsibility for the end result...That is unfair but in the end...it's mostly just sad for the kids whose input gets pushed aside or disregarded in favor of their father's desire to win at all costs...

Clearly some people do. As I said before, my husband helping my son had nothing to do with winning. It had everything to do with them doing a fun project together that my 6 year old was not able to do alone due to the use of power tools. I'm seriously surprised so many parents are so bent out of shape about this. I can understand if the parent does 100% of the work w/o the child (obviously not the point of the boy scouts) but for a parent to help a child and do the project together? Don't get the uproar.

Originally Posted by Hopes

A parent not helping doesn't mean that the parent isn't mechanially minded. The point of the project is to do it on your own. Your parent might offer advice, but the child is supposed to do the entire project on their own. Sadly, some parents actually build the cars. Boy Scout leaders won't supervise the building of the cars. Scouts is an honor system built on trusting the scout is being honest.

Originally Posted by mrstewart

Exactly what I was going to suggest...make the cars during a meeting so no one can cheat...or have them sign an honor code. Heck, I don't know...it is sad though!

Originally Posted by Hopes

Your father didn't give you much credit for figuring it out yourself. That's the main purpose of the pinewood derby.

[Hopes]

For the record, I do know a thing or two about the purpose of the Pinewood Derby. My husband was a Scoutmaster, not just a leader.

[Big G]

I spent several years as a den leader and a Cubmaster. I've been through a lot of Pinewood Derbies, and even had the track stored in my garage for longer than I care to remember. Having established that I'm talking from experience, not just blowing smoke, let me clear up a few points:

1) The boys are NOT expected to build the cars completely on their own. It's not realistic. Keep in mind that Cub Scouts begins in first grade, with 6-year-old kids.

2) I can assure you that the Guide to Safe Scouting strictly forbids Cub Scouts from working with power tools. Because of that, even Webelos Scouts will need some adult assistance. The wood used in the PWD kit is rather hard (nothing like the much softer wood used in the Space Derby and Raingutter Regatta kits), and is not well-suited to carving, especially by kids.

3) Even if the boys wanted to try their hand at hand-carving, Cub Scouts are expected to have earned their Whittlin' Chip card before using pocket knives. For most packs, this is part of the Bear program, which would leave Wolves and Tigers out in the cold.

4) Lathing the nails is indeed a good way to improve car performance. If you look extremely closely at the nails, you will see that they are pressed or stamped, usually with some flange line. Removing that and polishing the nail will reduce friction.

5) (Cheater's Tip) Surprisingly, if you purposely set the wheels so that one of them does not touch the track, that will also reduce friction and increase speed. A good check-in process will also screen for use of this trick.

---

Our pack has been extremely fortunate in that we have managed to avoid the problems described here. This is also a common topic on Scout-related boards, so you all are far from alone.

Some things that have worked well for us:

Rather than having huge trophies for the top 3 cars in the pack, we buy a much larger number of small trophies, and award them to the top 3 cars of each rank. The pack finals are just for bragging rights. Last PWD, we forgot to even run the pack finals. The kids didn't care, since there was no trophy at stake.

We also give out a number of trophies for design awards - funniest, best Scout spirit (a purposely ambiguous category), etc. We use Boy Scouts as judges - they can spot a dad-built car a mile away.

We run the heats in such a way that all the cars are "in the running" until the last 30 minutes or so of the night. We use a triple elimination method to select the top 3 cars of each rank. This 1) generates a lot of races, which is all a lot of the kids care about, and 2) gets rid of the arguments about which cars are the winners - if your son's car should have won, how did it get defeated THREE times?

We have had Scout dads open their garages for construction workshops to help those families without tools and/or expertise. This has been especially well-received by the single moms in our pack.

Finally, (Best Tip Ever - borrowed from another local pack) at the end of the evening, we run a "Coolest Cruiser" race. All the kids can bring up their losing cars and race them backwards. Single-elimination, slowest car wins (must cross finish line). Trophy for the winner. This keeps even those kids with extra-crummy cars interested throughout the evening. If you can't be fastest, maybe you can be slowest. One year, the winner (loser?) had a car that crossed the finish line by maybe 1/2 inch.

---

In the end, you can't control others - you can only control the experience you and your son have in building the car. If you're motivated to build a winning car, I highly recommend the book Pinewood Derby Speed Secrets by David Meade. It doesn't just tell you how to build a PWD car. It tells you how to build a PWD car with your son.

(Disclaimer: My kid only took PWD seriously in Tigers and Wolves, and built joke cars for the remainder of his time in Cub Scouts. )