Pinewood Derby

Pinewood Derby 2020 was great!

Thank you once again to all the volunteers, parents and Cub/Girl Scouts that were involved in making this years Pinewood Derby so awesome! Congratulations to all the winners, and a big Thank You to all the participants!

What is the Pinewood Derby?

From Wikipedia:

The pinewood derby is a racing event for Cub Scouts in the Boy Scouts of America. Cub Scouts, with the help of parents, build their own cars from wood, usually from kits containing a block of pine, plastic wheels and metal axles. With the popularity of the pinewood derby, other organizations have developed similar events, and a small industry has developed to provide tracks, timers, scales, trophies, ribbons and other products.

As mentioned above, there is a whole industry dedicated to the Derby – if you investigate it even a little bit, you will become bewildered by the sheer amount of information on the internet! There are thousands of stores that sell custom and specialized parts, and many more sites that explain the best techniques to get the fastest car. The best starting point for general information, though, is the official BSA site for the Derby: http://www.pinewoodderby.org/

Race Rules

Pinewood Derby Rules 2018.pdf

These are the Pinewood Derby rules - you must read these before even attempting to model your car!

Below are some ideas from previous years ... we hope they inspire you!

Previous year results ...

Pinewood Derby 2018

Thank you so much to all the Cub and Girl Scouts for coming to Kraft Hall for another great day of racing! We hope you all had a fun time, and are already thinking about designs for next year! Below are some links to the race results as well as the photo library:

  • Pinewood Derby 2018 Photo Gallery and Video Playlist - due to technical difficulties, we were only able to record video of Grade 1, 2 and half of Grade 3 :-(
  • Hometown Weekly article
  • Standings - the standings of all cars across all grades. Calculated by taking the average race time of all heats (some grades were able to run more often than others because of a lower attendance)
  • Results - race results of each individual heat
  • Individual Car Statistics - race results of each individual car; each car is on a different tab - apologies for the tabs not being named for the car

Pinewood Derby 2019

Thank you once again to all the volunteers, parents and Cub/Girl Scouts that were involved in making this years Pinewood Derby so awesome! Congratulations to all the winners, and a big Thank You to all the participants! As always, we recorded the video replays and we've posted them up to YouTube, as well as the race results and photos (to come).