Great Pinewood derby story…
So those 2 cars were made by my Dad and a friend of his who was an airline engineer. The lead was melted and put in the right place. The front right wheel was ground down for less rolling resistance and coincided with the weight balance so it basically never touched the track. The middle of the wheels were ground down to save weight and coated in Teflon.
Yeah… for a Cub Scout Pinwood derby. See, I remember tech shot from when I was 8… just like now with golf clubs😀. So the cars blew everyone away, won both years… not even remotely close. My job was stickers and paint. I modeled them after a Johnny Lightning car I had.
Fast forward to maybe 25 years ago. My boss is talking about his kid and the Pinewood derby coming up. This guy had a track in his basement and was building a car. I tell him my story…. He asks if he can borrow a car to race his against, I said sure.
A few weeks go by, he gives me updates on “what the fuck, how is your car so fast”. It ends up like this….. He has me in the office, gives me the car back. Tells me “ I couldn’t make a car to come close to yours… so I used yours. 3-4 heats in, I’m beating cars sooo bad… they are 1/4 down the track and we’ve already finished. Then somebody picks up the cars and looks at the wheels and notices the hub part is so thin you can almost see through them. Then they notice the small front wheel. We end up disqualified and they threw my son out of cub scouts.”