Danny’s Tiger Cub den participated in its first pinewood derby. Danny’s car won a design ribbon for “Unique Weights.” To make the car heavier, we had drilled three holes in the back to slide nails in. The nails were supposed to be flush, but the drill bit was too short, so we left the nails sticking out the back. They looked like exhaust pipes, and many people thought that was a great idea. Some great ideas are just great accidents.

Danny and I had worked on the cuts and sanding the wheels together. Danny did all of the sanding on the car. I was away for two nights for a sales meeting, and Danny decided to go ahead and paint his car. He skipped several steps including priming and sanding the primer. He also left the wheels in while painting, so paint got all over the wheels and axles.

He had a good design. Kathy asked him if he wanted help, and he said he knew what the design was going to be. He used tape to paint some of the straight lines. Then he painted “DJC 3” on the back.

Late the night before the registration, I panicked, realizing that Danny, who was already in bed, and I were not going to have time to finish the car. I got mad at Kathy for having let Danny paint the car without checking out the instructions. It was counter-productive getting mad.

I got out the paints and filled in the gaps where raw wood showed, sticking to Danny’s design. The top of the car was red with a black stripe down the center of the back. Danny had told me that he wanted thunder on the sides. I knew when he said it that he meant lightening. On the sides of his car were big yellow squares. I guess he had never drawn lightening before. I carefully painted in the triangles of green that turned his yellow squares into streaks of lightening.

I can remember drawing lightening as a kid. Lightening is a hard geometric shape to get right. I wonder what he thought as he painted those yellow squares, with me away, unable to help him. Was he frustrated? Did he not worry, thinking I could fix them? I’ll try to remember to ask.

Kathy found some varnish used on decks. I sanded the paint off the wheels and axles. Then I tested an idea of making graphite powder by sanding down a pencil. This seemed to make the wheels spin better, so I decided Danny could do this when I got home.

I carefully drilled 3 holes in the back to hold the 3 nails that would bring the car closer to 5 ounces. We had been using Gramalie’s scale to keep weight, but I was a bit concerned because empty, the scale registered half an ounce.

I figured we could always pull a nail out.

Then I made a license plate to go on the back, since the 3 holes went through the DJC 3 Danny painted. I used the computer to put 19 and 94 in the corners, DJC 3 in big letters, and Tiger Cub on the bottom.

With the license plate glued in place, I varnished the car and went to bed at 1:30 a.m. Kelly was crying as I went to bed, so I went in and patted her on the back. I was surprised to see Danny’s eyes open. “Are you awake?” I asked him. “Yes,” he said.

“I’ve been working on your car. Do you want to go downstairs and see it?”

“No,” he said, quite clearly.

“Do you want to wait until morning to see it?”

“Yes,” he said, and rolled over to go back to sleep. Later Danny told me that he thought all of that was a dream.

I left a note for Danny to call me at work so that I could find out what he thought about the car. He called me and told me that he had found it. He said “I like it.” You have to be Danny’s father or mother to know when he is really excited. I could tell he really did like it.

After work, we made the graphite powder by rubbing a pencil on sand paper. I had stopped by an Ace hardware, and they told me they were out of graphite powder because of the Boyscout Derby. Amazing.

We assembled the wheels and Nicole, Danny, and I drove to sign in the car. We were one of the first there, and Danny’s car was the first one to get to run down the track for a test. The wheels stayed on and the car seemed zippy enough to me. Danny put his car in the spot for Den #3. It looked great.

Nicole and Danny had made straight “A’s”, so we went to the Meadows for Butter Nut frozen custard. Nicole bought Kathy a cup to bring home.

On Saturday morning, we all got up to go to the races. Danny and I left early. Climbing into the car, Danny explained that he was going to save all the cars he makes each year in Boy Scouts. He’s going to give his cars to his boy. And he’s going to name his boy Daniel Joseph Cashin IV so that his boy can have a license plate that says DJC 4.

On the way over, Danny told me that at school yesterday, he had an assignment to write about the most special person in the world.

“The most special person?” I clarified.

“Yes.”

“Who did you write about?”

“You.”

“What did you write about me?”

“That you helped me build my derby car.”

For a dad, that’s about as good as it gets. Kathy teared up when I told her later that night.

As for the races, we were lucky that Danny’s Den got to go early and that after their races, they were done. Danny’s car did well, but it was not the fastest. It was fun, and we learned a lot.

#1: Buy lubricant early. The winning car made by Don and Curtiss had a liquid lubricant that would not harm the plastic wheels.

#2: Use emory cloth on the axles to get rid of any spurs.

#3: Make sure all 4 wheels touch. Danny and I discovered after the race that only 3 of his wheels were making contact.

#4: Put an inverted groove in the front. It will give a little head start because thin sticks are used to hold the cars at the gate, while wide hinges are used to rip the switches at the finish line.

#5: Get to 5 ounces. You can adjust if you fail the weigh-in. Danny’s car ended up weighing 4.03 ounces, and the winning car weighed 4.67.

However, building the car takes hours, and the races only take a few seconds. Building the car is where we win (as long as we can remain calm.)

I won in the car on the way to the races.

And now Danny has a ribbon and a neat car that Kelly likes to steal whenever she can.