The Speeder
The Speeder
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The Speeder |
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The Speeder |
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Editor's Notes
If your story is used, you will receive a copy of Volume 5 of the Pinewood Derby Times when it is compiled during the summer of 2006. "I get requests all the time to build complete cars for people. I tell them that is not what it is all about. The only worse thing I can think of is buying a finished car off eBay and asking (or needing) the buyer to overnight it. No, no, no! I myself have purchased expensive finished cars on eBay, but only as a collector. I would never think of buying one to race. I know 'times they are a changing', and the pace of life speeds by. But I would rather take time and build a car with my sons, and hope for a good finish. Then, with all the money I saved by not paying top dollar for someone else's labor, take my family to lunch after the race." - Tim Hellaby "By the way I did enjoy and agree with your article on eBay cars. The main point of the whole derby is to work with the kids, not to buy something to race." - Bart Bartkowiak "I too am greatly disturbed about the 'dark side' of Pinewood Derby cars being offered on auction sites on the Internet. Some sellers claim to be there to help some unfortunate child with no adult or tools to create their own car. Others make no bones about selling cars so that the purchaser might win an award for looks and others for possibly taking home a trophy or two for fastest car. There is even one group that has a production line of scouts and adults producing cars and selling them on an Internet auction site , advertising them as 'Scout built, just as they should be'. Of course none of these builders are the scout that will be showing and racing the car. The only goal is beating out the other scouts. Not only is this shameful cheating, it is also tragic. These children are learning all the wrong lessons. 'The ends justifies the means'. 'Cheating is okay if it gets you the win'. 'An unfair advantage is the best way to come out ahead of the rest'. 'You can buy your way to the top.' Where is the personal pride in knowing that as a team the adult/child did their best together? Instead the adult says to the child: 'Here is your car! It just came in the mail, I bought it for you from a professional builder on the Internet and it cost me a lot of money! But money is no object if it wins the trophies for us at the Pinewood Derby race! It will be the best looking and fastest car there!' I am the Thunderbird District Pinewood Derby Chairman. I put on Derby car clinics for my district to teach the cub scouts and the parents the rules and techniques they need to make a Pinewood Derby car that will make it down the track in good speed. I also teach Pinewood Derby techniques at the yearly Pow Wow. My goals are: (1) not have cars come to pack races and the district race and not qualify because of rule violations, (2) get the information out to as many as possible about how to make a good running car so that it will at least make it to the finish line, and (3) to understand that winning is not everything and that building the car is the main goal. Placing well in the race and show is just icing on the cake. I stress the dishonesty of purchasing cars from other builders who sell on the Internet. Instead I encourage the teams to use the parts from the derby kits and wheel kits available from BSA. Then work to produce their own car that they can be proud of, win or loose." - Randal Veenker |
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