VINTON–Cub Scouts from Pack 235 held their annual Pinewood Derby competition at Thrasher Memorial on January 30. They invited boys from Pack 18 who meet at Evangel Foursquare Church in Vinton and Pack 30 who meet at Sandy Lane Baptist in Goodview to join them for the races.
There were 9 entries built by the Cub Scouts in the official race and nine more built by parents and Boy Scouts who competed in the Open Race category.
The Pinewood Derby is an annual racing event for Cub Scouts sponsored by the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) and is one of the most popular events in Cub Scouting. Every year more than a million boys and parents team up to build and race a Pinewood Derby car. The first Pinewood Derby was organized in 1953 in California by Cubmaster Don Murphy and quickly spread across the nation.
Winners in the speed competition this year were Alec Terry in first place, Jhorden Sink in second place, and Royce Apple in third.
Winners for design (chosen by the adult leaders and the Boy Scouts attending) were Dakota Vaughan in first place, Carson Bivens in second place, and Royce Apple in third place.
The most coveted award because it is voted on by the Cub Scouts themselves, the Cub’s Choice Award, was presented to Dakota Vaughan.
In the Open Race, Boy Scout Nick Leslie won first place; Alex Sadler took second place; and Franklin Apple came in third.
Pack 235 began work on their cars at a workshop on New Year’s Day in preparation for the Derby event. The scouts start with a $5 car kit which contains a block of wood, four nail axles, and four wheels which they carve, sand, and decorate.
Their finished cars must not exceed the weight limit of five ounces determined at the official weigh-in before the race. They must be able to fit inside the template box which measures seven inches long and two and three-fourths inches wide with a wheel base of five and three-eighths inches. As for height, the completed car must fit under the finish line arch.
The cars are powered by gravity and at the Pinewood Derby event, they run on wooden tracks with three lanes in heats giving each car the chance to run on each lane. The track is about thirty-two feet in length. An electronic eye at the end of the course determines the winner of each heat, based on the first to cross the finish line.
Troop 235 Scoutmaster Greg Pino and Pack 235 Cubmaster Ryan Apple supervised the event, which began with laying out the track and releasing the cars to race on the track. Several other scout leaders assisted with the event, including calculation of the final results and awarding of the trophies.
Two Boy Scouts who have completed their Eagle Scout projects and who will participate in Eagle Scout ceremonies in the coming months were introduced and talked with the Cub Scouts about what it means to be a Scout—Daniel Webb from Troop 235 and Arthur Sadler from Troop 540. Webb is a senior at William Byrd. His project was the construction of a storage building addition to the Scout Building at Thrasher.
Sadler attends Staunton River High School. He built a rain garden at the Mill Mountain Zoo as his project.
The Thrasher Scouts meet every Monday night from 6 to 7 at the Boy Scout Building in Thrasher’s lower parking lot. Cub Scouts include boys in grades one through five.
They will be holding their annual Blue and Gold Banquet on February 20. This occasion signifies that the Cub Scouts have earned their ranks and are moving up to the next level with the beginning of the new school year next fall.
