Down and derby with the wooden racers

At the Pinewood Derby, boys don’t take the wheel so much as let go and watch gravity do its work. The key to victory in this miniature-car race is all in the preparation — and as the motto goes, a Boy Scout is always prepared. 

The Pinewood Derby is a yearly tradition that dates back to the car-obsessed 1950s. It pairs a bit of healthy competition with mechanical ingenuity (in lieu of big engines) and some old-fashioned craftsmanship. 

Scouts start with a small, regulation-sized block of pine wood, four wheels and two axles. Then they fashion, perhaps with a bit of parental help, a race car. The resulting vehicles are as varied in color and style as the Scouts’ own imaginations.

All day on Saturday, March 4, starting early in the morning, Scouts, siblings and parents filled the gymnasium at North Canaan Elementary School, sitting  around the derby track that started up on a stage and dipped straight down like a roller coaster to the finish line. 

The races were many but each one was quick — turn-away-and-you-miss-them quick, with up to four cars at once sent plummeting down, timed by the electric gate at the end of the track before they slammed with a soft thud into a cushioning blanket. 

Per the rules, no pine wood derby car can exceed 5 ounces. Troop 22 Scoutmaster Will Greenberg explained on Saturday that each car was carefully weighed on a kitchen scale before getting the green light (or the checkered flag). 

Greenberg started coming to the derby when his son was  a Cub Scout. Twelve years later, he’s still the one that lines up the cars and sends them flying down the near vertical start of the track. 

His advice for building the perfect race car was ambiguous: “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Obviously the heavier cars do better; the closer you can get to 5 ounces, the faster it will go down the track.” 

The lesson to be learned from the derby is “sportsmanship, leadership and teamwork,” he said. But is there any sneaky way to cheat? 

“No cheating,” he said. “This is the Boy Scouts!”