Kandy-Kolored, Streamlined, and Definitely Around The Bend

Pinewood Derby Racing and the dads who just can't get enough

- By Andrew Zaleski. Photographs by Heami Lee

It was the first Saturday of December 2018—tournament day—and he thought the cars he’d built could outperform anyone’s. They were compact. Sleek. Speedy. He watched anxiously as his pinewood derby racers took their spots at the top of a long, sloping aluminum track. When each heat began, they whizzed down the gleaming course. In the other lanes, the competition hopelessly gave chase. Inman’s entries finished at the front of the pack in two key rounds, and a thought slunk into his mind: He might just be the champion.

Then officials brought out the scales. Pinewood derby competitions are organized by class, like in boxing, and each has different rules. The categories Inman had won require that each wheel weigh a certain number of grams—because the lighter the disk, the faster the car. Break the rules, and you’re disqualified.

A referee carefully plucked one from each winner. Both registered two-hundredths of a gram too light. Inman was out.

“I was sick to my stomach,” he says. “The experience wasn’t just heartbreaking— it was embarrassing.” He’d have to wait 12 months for another shot at becoming a national pinewood champion.

Anyone who was a Boy Scout probably knows what a derby car is. Most likely your parents helped you fashion blocks of pine or balsa into a light, four-wheeled racer, usually about the width and length of an iPhone. You made them to win merit badges. For many, the experience is merely a cherished childhood memory.