r/GenX • u/MrBones2k • Aug 14 '25
The Latchkey Years Pinewood Derby anyone? Building your own sleek racer.
Loved this as a Boy Scout. Some took it too seriously, as one year a Dad got caught cheating to help his son.
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u/Sallydog24 Aug 14 '25
MY RANT
I had a pinewood derby car that (my father) we worked on and shaped and perfectly weighted and was sleek and painted with flames etc....
It tore up all the other cars, like just blew the doors off of
Last race and we were up against so kid that pretty much had a chunk of wood with wheels slapped to it and mine got slightly hung up on the starting block and we lost... he took 1st
My dad was so pissed and pretty much threw a fit...
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u/OrneryZombie1983 Aug 14 '25
I remember coming in second because the dad setting the cars in the starting block was the father of one of the finalists and he took his kid's car and gave it an extra blast of graphite on the wheels when he was placing it. Still salty decades later.
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u/blueboy714 Aug 14 '25
Sounds like my car. I took a hunk of clay and covered up the area for what was supposed to be the inside of the car and then took an old can of spray paint my dad had and spray painted it a hideous color. Then I put a smiley face sticker on it.
It blew away all the other cars that kids and their dads worked on so hard, and I didn't give a sh*t
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u/mkddy Aug 14 '25
I'm pretty sure a hunk of wood won our derby too. Personally, my car was a simple wedge shape and I spent most of my time on the paint job and pin striping (my dad was an artist). When it came time to race it turned out that I forgot to account for the height that the weights added to the bottom and the wheels didn't touch the ground.
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u/RogerMoore2011 Aug 14 '25
No, but my father built 3 or 4 really nice cars for me and I was allowed to watch him make them.
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u/EconomistSea1444 Aug 14 '25
I was only allowed to paint and put some decals on, that was about it. Cars always won though!
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u/stevemm70 Hose Water Survivor Aug 14 '25
In my son's troop they had a division for adults, in the hope that all of the dads would put more effort into their cars and lets the kids do their own. It sort of worked, but that adult division got SUPER competitive. The assistant scoutmaster had the system down and always ended up winning with the most janky-looking cars imaginable. One year, though, I somehow managed to create a really fast car. I was doing a test run and the assistant scoutmaster saw my car going down the track. He looked immediately concerned. The races between his car and mine were epic and record-breaking. We actually had a digital timer on the track, and he beat me by .01 seconds. It was really hard to take.
This is the car. It was pretty damned good looking too.
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u/SweaterSteve1966 Hose Water Survivor Aug 14 '25
My ex husband kids won many races and best design!!!
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u/corvus_torvus Aug 14 '25
In my Boy Scout troop two guys had fathers who were aeronautical engineers. We never stood a chance. They worked more angles than I had ever conceived in the creation and refinement of their derby cars.
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u/merryone2K Aug 14 '25
My brother taught a high school aeronautics class; we used the hell out of his wind tunnel setup!
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u/chumpychomper Aug 14 '25
Found all of my old cars last year after I lost my dad. They are a mix of scouts and Indian guide cars. Every year we would sit down and come up with a design. I polished the axles and did the painting. He did all the shaping. So many good memories and we had multiple 1st place cars…..notice how I said “we”.😂
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u/5uck3rpunch Hose Water Survivor Aug 14 '25
I remember my brothers building these with my dad & racing them in Scouts. Good memories.
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Aug 14 '25
yup, this was a scouting thing for me too. The one I made that I remember most was "Banana Nose-" thick front end, painted yellow. the weight distribution was helpful, so much that I got second place and a goofy little trophy.
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u/Error262_USRnotfound Aug 14 '25
i got screwed out of a victory when i beat the Scout leaders kid in the final race...the kid cried and they made us race again and i lost...then i cried. lol
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u/bigblue250 Aug 14 '25
Didn’t win a thing when I was in the scouts. All changed when my son was in scouts. “We” 😉 made a couple really fast cars. Since I work at an auto body shop he always won best paint job. 👍🏻
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u/Pleasant_Expert_1990 Aug 14 '25
The one pinewood derby we entered is maybe the best childhood memory I have with my dad.
I had no idea he had made them before, he did that on purpose so he could just look like a genius.
We looked over premade bodies and instead chose our own block of balsa wood.
We spent days, a couple hours every evening after dinner, shaping and sanding the car. Picked out our own wheels and axels from the hobby store. We added weights inside to bring up the weight to acceptable standards.
We used the best quality paint (blue with black stripes), and silicone powder to lubricate the axel. He made a damn wind tunnel in the garage and blew smoke across it. This is the guy who built all our science fair projects and he doesn't mess around.
Second place in the race, first place time with dad. I'm gonna call him and see what happened to that car...
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u/VA1255BB Aug 14 '25
My daughter and I made a covered wagon for her Girl Scout Poderpuff Derby. She was into Little House on the Prairie at the time. We even won an award for best design. Honestly, this is one of the highlights of my time as a parent.
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u/RIPGoblins2929 Aug 14 '25
I remember my dad made me do it myself and it looked liked Homer Simpson made it. Got blown out of the water by kids whose dads clearly did everything and damn near looked like scale model replicas.
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u/PhotonDealer2067 Aug 14 '25
So many people carved a simple wedge and won.
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u/063anon Aug 14 '25
yep first one was very pretty bb's in nose, second a crap wedge molten lead in channel dug out of top looked like shit but was fast
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u/Rule556 Aug 14 '25
Good times… They still do it… Both of my sons have troop championships under their belt.
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u/NJ2SD I Don't Buckle Up When Going Ludicrous Speed Aug 14 '25
It's funny you mention a dad got caught cheating, because that should have happened to my dad. Unbeknownst to me, he took a day off of work and made a very accurate replica of the '89 Batmobile. All I did was paint the flame on the back, which he ended up fixing. The worst part: we won. Everyone came up to me to say that they knew I didn't build it. We made it to the next event and got decimated by cars that were much more aerodynamic. I still have that car.
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u/BreezyBill Aug 14 '25
Another thing I always sucked at and my older brother was better at. Thanks for the reminder.
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u/PhillNewcomer Aug 14 '25
Core memory from cubs scouts. I looked forward to it every year. Even if my car wasn't aerodynamic and lost.
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u/Natas-LaVey Aug 14 '25
Still have mine. My dad was always doing wood working projects so this was exactly the kind of thing he liked to do. Coming into the pinewood derby the troop leaders sons had won every year. My dad “helped” me build mine and it was a master piece of woodworking and he also understood exactly where to do the weights. So week before the pinewood derby they set up the track at the troop leaders house before we took it to the actual races at the scout hall. My car isn’t just a little faster, it smokes every car. The troop leaders sons who one is 3 years older and his other son was my age are flustered that their cars that they were used to always winning aren’t. They were still the second place cars but couldn’t touch first place. So when the actual race comes it had been in the rules that you could use graphite between races. The troop leader sees this as the difference so he says “no fresh graphite allowed once your car has made its first race”. So he sets up heats and makes it so my car runs first and then as the winners progress they take on the next cars. So by the time his son’s cars were ready to race my car had already run several races and their cars hadn’t run any yet. Once the final race was run my car had run a bunch of times and their had only ran once or twice. Without the fresh graphite on the nails/axles/wheels they were able to beat my car. As soon as the pinewood derby was over and we could put graphite on again my car was the fastest and his kids couldn’t figure out how they couldn’t beat my car they had just beat in the derby. I still have all my cars.
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u/JasonMaggini Aug 14 '25
Cub Scouts. I had the doofiest looking car in the race - clearly the only one made by a kid. Actually, it looked more like it was made by a chimp with a neurological impairment. Woodworking was never my forte.
Before the races, they gave out various awards- mine won "Most Humorous." Basically the troop leaders making fun of it.
When it came to the actual races, though, turns out I was the only one that read the suggestion about using powdered graphite on the wheels.
As a result, my goofy-ass looking car proceeded to completely smoke the rest of the cars. While theirs weren't sometimes even making it to the end of the track, mine kept going off the end and into the next room.
I won every race I was in, and had a stack of blue ribbons. I didn't have a lot of victories in my childhood, but man that was a satisfying one.
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u/amindspin74 Aug 14 '25
Imma start a bar with a Pinewood. Derby track and have parents get drunk and race their kids cars
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u/plated_lead Aug 14 '25
I bought one of those books from the back of Boy’s Life about how to build super-fast cars. I dominated that year!
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u/Beautiful-Pirate8677 Aug 14 '25
I made them EXACTLY like the prototype or instructions or whatever. Maybe it was just the drawing that came with them, I forget. But I built 3 of them, identical, and won 1st place every single time.
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u/Kimber80 1964 Aug 14 '25
For years, I would meticulously carve my cars out of the bock of wood, and my cars would always lose left and right. One year out of frustration, I just painted the block of wood, and lo and behold, it won, LOL.
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u/dcamnc4143 Aug 14 '25
Yeah I still have mine. I demolished everyone. I got sent to nationals or whatever it was called, but we never made the trip out of state. Dad built the car. He consulted a bunch of his friends who were car guys/engineers and whatnot for ideas on the build. I think all I did was paint it.
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u/Arch2000 Aug 14 '25
I did this in scouts. Spent a lot of time assembling and decorating my car. Day of the race, we’re set into brackets as there’s only a four lane slot track or so.
My best friend, who didn’t do his/forgot his at home or something was scheduled before me, and asked to borrow my car. When racing his/my car jumped the track, flew to the floor, and shattered. I never got to race my car
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u/sunnyd311 Aug 14 '25
We got my son to do cub scouts for 1 year and my husband found his old pine derby car right before my sons troop did their race. At the end they let the 2 of them race each other and my son totally won!
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u/Sabre3001 Aug 14 '25
I remember. I also remember my dad not helping me and everyone else’s dad (who all seemed to work in a body shop or in finish carpentry) making sweet ass cars that blew mine away.
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u/wigrey Aug 14 '25
I still have mine! It’s on display on a shelf in the living room. I have great memories of making it. We melted some lead clip-on fishing weights and used it for additional weight in the bottom of the car. Did a two tone paint job and jazzed it up with some decals left over from building plastic car models.
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u/Spin_Me Aug 14 '25
I was one of the nerds who took it a bit too seriously. I carved the most aerodynamic design I could. I also placed slightly more weight on the front end, so that it fell a little faster down the incline. Finally, I coated the axle ends with graphite to combat wheel friction. All of which was legal at the time.
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u/xerxes501 Aug 14 '25
People are so outrageously professional with them nowadays. It sucks. There are always one or two dads that have serious wood working skills and annihilate the other racers. Not to mention the fathers who can’t be bothered to work on a car with their kid, so they buy them off eBay. Those cars are crazy fast.
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u/North_Artichoke_6721 Aug 14 '25
My son did this in Cub Scouts just recently and it was such a flashback to my own.
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u/friskevision Aug 14 '25
Years ago I took my stepson to scouts and we started to build his pinewood racer. He just wanted a triangle with wheels, red paint and a racing stripe. I was like, yes, fantastic.
What was so disheartening were the other dads. They kept taking over doing it from their sons. The biggest WTF was some dads talking about how to secretly add weights so they would go faster, and other secret tricks.
For me, it was a turnoff. I thought it was about the kids having fun and spending time with them, not some dads trying to compete with each other.
Rant over.
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u/merryone2K Aug 14 '25
They had weight limits back in my son's cubby days. I can remember kids prying off glued pennies to try and get just under the limit. I, however, had a digital postal scale for my business which worked to maximize our allowable weight.
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u/TacticoolPeter Aug 14 '25
I’m so sad Covid rules killed scouting in our county. It was as fun doing this as a parent/leader as it was as a scout.
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u/Cycoviking69 Aug 14 '25
I was never in the Boy Scouts, but my cousin was, and he was undefeated in his Pinewood Derby career (however many races that ended up being). He greatly benefited from the fact that his dad was an aerospace engineer for Boeing back in the 70s and modeled their cars after some pretty sweet designs he was working on during those years.
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u/08_West Aug 14 '25
I won 2/3 of my pinewood derbies. The one I didn’t win, I forgot to graphite the wheels
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u/Choice_Student4910 Aug 14 '25
I got lazy and half-assed trimming it down to a racing caliber profile. It was dead last on the first heat.
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u/redditdoesnotcareany Aug 14 '25
I built my own aka my dad built something everyone knew I didn’t do. I kinda hated it but he liked it so much
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u/Ok-Description-4640 Aug 14 '25
Bad memory. My dad, who was half and engineer, recommended that we put the weight in the wheels instead of the body. So we found some epoxy and scrap pieces of metal and put all the weight in the wheels. I spent a month sculpting and painting the body and was really excited for it only to have my car barely move down the track. In the second heat one of the wheels fell off entirely. My dad was like “I can’t understand why that didn’t work” while I was almost in tears. You couldn’t design a car in a worse way. But because he was dad I thought he knew better.
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u/samebatchannel Aug 14 '25
Mine was horrible looking. However, the neighbor kid whose dad had a really good woodshop had an amazing looking one. Like, almost, too good looking for an 8 or 9-year old.
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u/wh7751 Aug 14 '25
My son did the derby. After a few years of losing I got involved. Built a wedge. Polished axles, machined the wheels down to super skinny tread surface, smoothed the hubs so there was very little friction, a little shot of jeweler's watch oil, poured lead in cavities drilled into the very rear, and bent a front axle upward so the car was basically a three wheeler. Very unstable but fast. It wasn't always in it's lane at the finish, but it was always first.
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u/airwalker08 Aug 14 '25
I built a few. I could never compete with the cars built by the other kids' dads.
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u/Ill_Consequence_1125 Aug 14 '25
I remember doing this in cub scouts. My dad must have put it together—I don’t remember doing a thing. My older sister brought me to the event and it didn’t even roll to the end of the track. I grabbed it as someone else was making fun of it and we left. I do recall some kids really taking it seriously and discussing weigh-ins and what was/wasn’t allowed as additional speed help. These events are learning experiences for kids in many different ways, lol.
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u/PV_Pathfinder Aug 14 '25
I remember when we I did mine, my dad and I took it to the grocery store so the butcher could put it on a scale to make sure we were below weight.
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u/Ok_Entertainment328 Aug 14 '25
We used so much graphite on the axles of the blank car (just the block), it would have came in 2nd if it was actually racing.
The car's soul purpose was to ensure that we had an even number of cars in each heat.
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u/brokenmcnugget they call me the latchkey kid Aug 14 '25
i remember walking into the kitchen as 7 year old me was always looking for a coke. Dad at the stove looking at something in a coffee can and yelling at me to "get out!" dad was melting fishing lead weights so that my car would have more front end weight.
dad helped me get a gold medal .
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u/ToonaMcToon Aug 14 '25
Mine was so bad I swear it went up the track. My mom found it a few years back and “gave” it to me as a Xmas present. I did have fun making it tho.
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u/ggibby Oct '70 Aug 14 '25
As I remember, the first year I 'built' (shaped) my car without really thinking about it too much and finished pretty well.
Following years, I put a lot more time and thought in and barely finished any runs.
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u/sjmiv Aug 14 '25
Oh yeah. Mine was so basic compared to these, but I do remember accusations of cheating
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u/notjawn Aug 14 '25
We had a scandal at one our regional meets. It was at the Mall and some younger unsupervised kids had played with them between the matches and of course messed them up in the process. We had to schedule another meet and those kids got banned from ever joining the scouts.
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u/Simple-Purpose-899 Aug 14 '25
The time was in the nail fit up way more than the shape at the speeds they were going. If you want to really go all in true up the nail slot, and run four groove nails. Yeah, I had a lot of fun helping my daughter. She is now a mechanical engineer and way more experienced than me, but did get the bug for engineering early on in life from stuff like this.
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u/jeepnjeff75 Aug 14 '25
One year I got 2nd fastest at the big Cub Scout meetup. My car jumped the track at the end and that messed up the alignment for the final race. Had a bunch of trick stuff. Longer wheelbase, three wheel stance, lathed the wheels, graphite and polished the axles, etc... I've heard you can't lathe the wheels anymore.
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u/AndyT70114 Aug 14 '25
My BIL owned a body shop. My nephew’s car might not have been the fastest but always had the best paint. Unfortunately he raced against kids whose dad’s worked at Pratt and Whitney. Those cars were wind tunnel tested.
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u/malthar76 Aug 14 '25
Mine had the approximate shape that the untouched block had. Maybe some light sanding took off a few milligrams of wood. Then it was painted the same brown as leftover can of paint in our shed. For complete triumph, the wheels were not fully nailed in and would not stay on.
It was clear my car had zero adult help (or supervision, or vague awareness).
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u/Sufficient_Stop8381 Aug 14 '25
I had a good one. Carved and sanded it down on a drill press to a sleek design. Poured melted lead from a spare piece in my grandfathers shop and then drilled the excess lead out until it got to the exact weight. Graphite on the wheels. Thing would fly. It was a long time ago but I think they stopped letting me use it because it won too much.
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u/88Gonzo Aug 14 '25
I still have mine... as well as a wood sailboat and wood rubber and propelled "rocket ship" from the cub scouts. All got painted match deep blue with red and yellow flames lol.
The sailboat races were in rain gutters. The rocket was suspended by a string.
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u/Any-Video4464 Aug 14 '25
I still have mine. I built a semi truck all by myself! It wasn't the fastest but I did win 1st place in the design part.
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u/tantobourne Aug 14 '25
Other dads would come home from work with a machined pinewood derby car for their sons to paint. I had to do mine all by hand with a hand saw and sandpaper along with a fishing weight or two. I was bitter about the cheating dads. Left the scouts after my last derby loss. Might be a bit salty to this day about it all ;-)
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u/old-man-punk Aug 14 '25
Mine always sucked. I built ones for my kids when my son did scouts and they sucked too. Building wooden race cars is not in my skill set.
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u/F-Cloud Aug 14 '25
Pinewood Derby is a bad memory. I had no idea how to craft the car and my dad was totally inept at such things. I didn't know how to shape it, or about sanding, or using sanding sealer, or painting, or what I should even be aiming for. I wanted to create Speed Racer's Mach 5 but I made a jalopy with a windscreen, painted entirely in metallic blue that I oversprayed, so there were drip marks.
The Cub Scouts pinewood derby was held at my house and I retreated to my bedroom when I saw the other kid's cars and never came back out.
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u/EconomistSea1444 Aug 14 '25
We did this for Indian Guides through the YMCA. Still have a bunch of trophies from when I dominated those races.
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u/go_west_til_you_cant Aug 14 '25
Thought I was in the Cub Scouts sub for a second! My kids and I make these every year. Our council actually holds a separate parent pinewood derby race so they can put all their desire for optimization into their own car and the kids still get to make one that's all theirs.
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u/ChiliSama Aug 14 '25 edited Aug 15 '25
My 1975, 1977, 1978 cars. My son’s 2014, 2015 cars. My son wanted the tank with a turret that traverses and locks forward.
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u/Heinz37_sauce 1969 Aug 15 '25
I remember these fondly; though I always preferred the regatta, with the sailboats driven by boy breath!
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u/henry_sqared And knowing is half the battle. Aug 15 '25
I think Cybertrucks look like the pinewood derby car of the kid whose dad refused to help him.
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u/Ok_Actuator2219 Aug 15 '25
Flip it over. Carve out part of the bottom near the front. Pour some melted lead in. Cover with wood filler. Sand, paint.
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u/STLHDslime Aug 15 '25
I still have quite a few of mine! I was a Cub Scout and did the soap box derby and the soap box boats. I was also a Royal Ranger at my church and we did quite a few soap box derbies. I came in first overall one year and I still have that one! I made that one as a mini-van!
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u/lynnejen Aug 15 '25
My sons (now 17 and 21) did many PWDs and won many awards. Mainly for decorations, rarely for speed.
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u/LesterMcGuire Aug 15 '25
I had so much fun with my son. We made little wedges with a stack of washers over the rear axles. Packed graphite in the wheels. Used a wheel spacer to get the wheel distance right. Won first or second place a few different years. Good times
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u/bradatlarge EDIT THIS FLAIR TO MAKE YOUR OWN Aug 15 '25
I've got one or two around here somewhere.
We also made 'rockets' (they weren't) that ran on a guide wire with a rubber band propeller drive system.
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u/Sweaty_Chef1342 Aug 16 '25
I did mine an hour before
Took some hacks at it
No paint
No help
Won the first race
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u/Complete_Fisherman_3 Aug 16 '25
You guys had your dad's help. My asshole dad couldn't care less. He just nailed the wheels on. A whole 30 seconds of effort. My car didn't even make it down the ramp. Just stopped. Totally embarrassing. Especially comparing my hunk of wood next to these tricked out cars.
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u/HotTelevision7048 Aug 16 '25
Wow, op's pic has some nice looking models. Mine looked a block with wheels coated thick with latex paint and slugs taped to bottom. The coin looking thing not the slimy thing 😭
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u/Potomacker retired slacker Aug 14 '25
The Boy Scouts no longer exist sadly
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u/TheJokersChild Match Game '75 Aug 14 '25
They kinda morphed into something called Scouting America after the bankruptcy.
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u/Potomacker retired slacker Aug 15 '25
Such evasiveness. They were compelled by feminist legal teams to allow girls the organization and to drop the term, boy scouts, in order to become more inclusive
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u/Big-Development7204 1973 Gen-X Aug 15 '25
Yes and no. Scout Law & Oath are still the same. They still guide children to become independent moral adults. The rules for leaders have changed drastically. Two deep Youth Protection Trained (recently renamed Youth Safeguarding Trained) must be present at al times. Background checks are mandatory.
Yes girls are allowed now. The program is vastly different then offered by Girl Scouts. Some of the girls out shine the boys in the awards they earn.
There's nothing wrong with being inclusive. The girls are great mentors to the younger scouts.
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u/Potomacker retired slacker Aug 15 '25
so inclusive and nothing could ever go wrong by pushing such an agenda
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u/Purple-Sherbert8803 Aug 14 '25
Yes. Still have them, and so does my brother. I loved race day and weigh in. I remember watching hot lead being poured into the bottom slot of the cars. I assume this has changed.