Race Day!

Today was the Pinewood Derby. Skip was able to fly stand -by on a full plane. At the last moment one seat opened up and he got it. A prayer answered. Sam was thrilled.

Being early to the race was important to Sam and Skip. They both wanted to try the track out before the race to see how fast the car was. Two older cars were brought along to the race to share with some new members of our ward that didn't have time to make their own. These were not winning or loosing cars, just middle the Pack cars. The minute they arrived Sam raced his car against his last years car and lost. He was worried. They loaded it up with some graphite and hoped for the best as the track was now closed.

A prayer, the Pledge and the race was on. The track was running fast on lane two, but our Cub Master had things under control. He would race several heats so each car would get to race in different lanes and all would be fair. {Sam is all about fair. He doesn't mind loosing as much as he minds if it was a fair race.} Let me just say the person that runs the race has a tough job and gets all my respect. Our crowd was pretty good, but they still gave him a hard time on some of the races. The Pinewood Derby can get quite emotional to say the least and not just for the boys.....if you know what I mean.

'Crash' was running well after being doused with a ton of graphite. The car was winning all it's heats. You could tell by the half smile on his face that Sam was pleased. In one race his competitors car was back heavy and shimmying. The owner decided to run it backwards this made a huge difference. Sam told them to turn his around too. Then Sam started changing the position of the way his car was running in random races, or so we thought. Skip and I were just scratching our heads. One way was slower than the other and we knew Sam could tell.

Sam is not really emotional unless he feels like he has been wronged. Then he gets emotional and really stubborn and I am usually pulling my hair out when he gets this way, because you cannot reason with him. On the other hand, he likes everyone including him to get a fair shake and have a good experience and he is an incredible compassionate kid. He was sitting at the front of the track giving every racer high fives, a smile and words of encouragement as they came back from their race.

You may think this is easy if you are winning. What we found out later was that Sam was changing his car so he wouldn't smoke the really slow cars. We have had the really slow cars. We have been in Derby's where we didn't win one race. These races were heart breaking to watch. Sam remembered. He told me later,"Mom, I just wanted everyone to have a good time."

I love the Pinewood Derby and from talking with a lot of Moms, I may be in the minority. I like that the Dad has too work with his son. I like that they spend time together. Yes, the Dad generally does most of the work and the boy does the grunt work, but they are working together. When Dad's are busy this doesn't always happen. The dead line kind of forces the issue.

In the end Sam won. He was so happy and so was Skip and me and Claire and Blake and Jack. I was so proud of the way he behaved during the whole race. We felt like, whew.....finally. He got a trophy that he gets to hold onto for a year. All the previous winners names, from our ward, for the past 14 years, are on there and soon Sam's name will be engrave on there too.

He told me tonight, as we talked before I tucked him in, that he felt like it was a pretty fair race. He was so glad his Dad made it home to help him, and was happy his car turned out pretty nice. He looked at the trophy nodded his head and gave me a half smile. I gave him a big kiss.

Now we go to districts. Win or loose I think Sam will be okay.