Tonight is the big night. Over the past two weeks I’ve spent about 8 hours or more working on my Outlaw Pinewood Derby Car and IT DOESN’T WORK! Awe Barnacles! It’s a serious contraption with springs, levers, release pins, sharp points, CO2 cartridges, and a gopher trap. This thing is a beast, and quite dangerous because of all the sharp metal. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that simpler is better. There is too much that can go wrong for it to work. The main problem is that the puncture plate on the back of the car puts way too much pressure on the release pin for it to actually release, the release pin just stays stuck there. Oh well, I’ll chalk it up to experience for next year. This morning I quickly put together another car that only held two CO2 cartridges and nothing else. That car along with a couple of screws in a board (car starter) and a hammer are what I took to the race. It was difficult to get it to fire on cue but when it did, it flew… right off the track and into the leg of a spectator. She said that it scared her more than it hurt. The car was way too light and the force to puncture the CO2 cartridges bumped the car around the track making its direction pretty unpredictable. The first car I build actually worked better because of all the added weight. It just shot down the track. I did win two races, one because of the force of the hammer hitting the back of the car propelled it down the track and one because the CO2 cartridges worked correctly. There were several other neat cars racing tonight. A frog, a blocker that had arms that kept other cars from passing, and several basic cars with fun themes that were all supped up with axle lube and only 3 wheels. Seriously fun night!
