Fast and flashy cars at Scouts’ Pinewood Derby

KENT — Hopes were high on Saturday, March 19, as Cub Scout Pack 11 held its annual Pinewood Derby in the parish hall of the First Congregational Church. The room was filled with Cub Scouts and their parents and siblings. Each Scout, with help from his parents or another adult, had constructed and decorated a small wooden car to race during the derby. The derby is an annual, national Boy Scout event that many area packs participate in. The first derby was held in 1953; California Cubmaster Don Murphy came up with the idea as an activity for Scouts who were too young to participate in soap box derbies.Each participant starts with a kit that includes a rectangular block of pine wood, wheels and axles. The mini cars are honed and refined to the point where some look like model kit cars. Since the cars come in all different shapes and sizes, each car is weighed to make sure there is an equal field. Regulations govern the size and shape of the mini vehicles. Many cars were built as replicas of Hummers or sports cars. The cars were raced in different divisions depending on the boys’ ranks (there were Tigers, Wolves, Bears and Webelos). The wooden track allowed three cars to compete in each heat. They started at the top of a steep ramp and flew down a long straightaway that stretched all the way across the parish hall. The three boys whose cars were on the track at any given time stood near the ramp, waving flags that indicated which lanes their cars were in. The crowd erupted into cheers as each race played out. The cars that made it to the end of the track the fastest won their divisions. At the end, the three cars with the fastest times raced to determine the champion. In each division, the cars raced three times, switching lanes each time, to make sure no lane had any advantage over the others. The three finishing times were then averaged. In the Tiger division, Brennan Wilkins won with an average time of 2.357 seconds. In the Wolves division, Tyler Fredritz won with an average time of 2.470. In the Bears division, John DiGiacomo won with an average time of 2.439. In the Webelos 1 division, Nathan Winter won with an average time of 2.548; in the Webelos 2 division, Max Branson won with an average time of 2.467.The overall winner was Brennan Wilkins, with an average time of 2.352. Four of the scouts (Brennan Wilkins, Elijah Battelstein, John DiGiacomo and Tyler Fredritz) will now move on to the district race, which will be held on Saturday, March 26, at the John Pettibone School in New Milford. The derby was sponsored by Taylor Oil in Dover Plains, N.Y., which made the purchase of trophies possible.