1st State Races Ever Tomorrow

[Stephen's Dad]

This should be fun. Tomorrow Stephen gets to compete in his third & final race of 2004. The Scouting Extravaganza tomorrow at the North Haven, CT Fairgrounds will involve a Pinewood Derby for the top 3 finishers of each District race in the State. The message communicated thus far has been this will primarily be a fun race. There seems to be a desire to keep this a low tempo affair. Judging by the days itinerary, tomorrow should be fun for all the boys whether racing or observing.

Steve (the Dad)

[Stephen's Dad]

Connecticut YankeeCouncil is made up of 6 Districts. The top 3 finishers of each District race were invited to todays State race. Of the 18 boys, 10 registered to race. Not bad since the decision to hold todays race was made only 3 weeks ago.

Somehow my son Stephen took first place on a very rickety track.

So with all the help we got here & some hard work & careful planning, Stephen nailed:

First in Pack
Second in District
First in State

For this Father & Son, all of this is still soaking in. Then there is the issue of being asked to serve as Pinewood Derby committee person for 2005. I accepted but have no idea what comes next.

Any ideas?

Thanks & Best Wishes to All.

Steve

[Stan Pope]

Then there is the issue of being asked to serve as Pinewood Derby committee person for 2005. I accepted but have no idea what comes next.

Any ideas?

Congratulations!

1. Find out "what your boss expects." He/she might be the program chairman or district chairman. Especially, check on problems in the past, things that he/she wants done differently and things that should be done exactly as they have been done. Find out why.

2. Find out "what are the traditions." How, when, where was it done in the past? What are the participants expecting? Past chairmen are a good resource for this information.

3. Ask yourself "does this provide the best experience for the scouts that we can?" Identify potential improvements. Then analyze the problems you would face in managing the necessary changes.

The usual calendar for district events begins about 9 months prior to the event date. Your DE should be able to supply a generic check list for district events.

More when ...

[Pinewood King]

Connecticut YankeeCouncil is made up of 6 Districts. The top 3 finishers of each District race were invited to todays State race. Of the 18 boys, 10 registered to race. Not bad since the decision to hold todays race was made only 3 weeks ago.

Somehow my son Stephen took first place on a very rickety track.

So with all the help we got here & some hard work & careful planning, Stephen nailed:

First in Pack
Second in District
First in State

For this Father & Son, all of this is still soaking in. Then there is the issue of being asked to serve as Pinewood Derby committee person for 2005. I accepted but have no idea what comes next.

Any ideas?

Thanks & Best Wishes to All.

Steve

Congratulations .. I was there too. Small world. I liked your car design and paint job. I think I also ran against you in the districts. You are right, that track was rickety. The gate malfunctioned on are second race and left two of the 3 cars a 1 hundredth of a second behind the times we should have got. Oh well, still would not have caught today. Your car was running well.

Good luck,
John Palmieri

[Stephen's Dad]

Ho John,

The boys did race together for District in Trumbull. They finished 1 & 2 on a smooth track that seemed to favor long wheelbased cars. That track was probably Pack 168's?

I think at North Haven, the rough track was better handled by the shorter wheel based cars like Stephen's since all of the stretched cars ran slower than expected. But no car performed well in Lane C. We had a bad start in that lane too. They all came off the start on an angle. Fortunately, all the boys had to run lane C once so it all came out in the end.

If the State race receives enough support & interest, perhaps we'll see it grow into a premium facility. At the least I hope we can keep the Extravaganza event on going. For all the time & effort the boys put into the PWD, it is fun to see their best efforts running several events.

[Pinewood King]

Hi Steve,

I think your on to something with the guide rail collision and the longer wheels base cars. I taped the races and after watching them what I thought was a gate failure was probably related to poor lane staging/old imperfect track. Our lane time that most confused me was the middle lane. We ran our slowest time at 2.501. Lane A was 2.413. Lane C was something like 2.441? The 2.501 time just seemed a bit off to me. our car in lane b and the lane c car where both aroung 2.50. Thats why I thought something may have gone wrong.

It was fun. and I also hope it grows. I hope that the councils can dictate to the districts and districts to the packs the same set of rules. In our pack we had a 4 on the floor rule, where in the district that limitaion was lifted. You would think that you could get one governing body that could dictate the rules for all scout races. That way we could have a set of races that would go from pack->districts->councils-state. That would be fun. But I am sure politics between parties would not let that happen.

Have a good one,
John.

[Stan Pope]

It was fun. and I also hope it grows. I hope that the councils can dictate to the districts and districts to the packs the same set of rules. In our pack we had a 4 on the floor rule, where in the district that limitaion was lifted. You would think that you could get one governing body that could dictate the rules for all scout races. That way we could have a set of races that would go from pack->districts->councils-state. That would be fun. But I am sure politics between parties would not let that happen.

I gotta be a "stick in the mud" on the issue of "state races". The event serves directly only a very small percentage of the scout population. To serve a larger percentage makes the scale unwieldy. The event serves the entire population only very indirectly ... by winning (or doing very well in) local race, then again in district/council race, they can "go to state," thereby adding cause for the next lower event.

The real event for which "added cause" is valuable is the unit (pack) race. And, the district race does this very well.

Personally, I am happy with a district event that serves, on average, half of each pack's cub scouts. Winning one's way to the district races is attainable for most of those who care.

Add the cost of forced consistency of rules to the relative lack of value for state/council races and you have a useless chunk of program that forces inflexibility at the lowest levels.

[Stephen's Dad]

Stan got me thinking how this event could draw larger numbers & still be manageable without taking away from the District events. Then it dawned on me.

Saturday's race was only Council wide. Yankee Council is comprised of only the 6 Districts in SE CT. The rest of our small state is still 5 times larger in area. More research to be done.

Steve

[Stan Pope]

I'm not trying to "shoot down" the idea. I'd like to see wider competition. So, I'd like to help dig around in the ideas to find ways around what I see as problems.

So, keep researching and keep talking!

[Pinewood King]

Stan got me thinking how this event could draw larger numbers & still be manageable without taking away from the District events. Then it dawned on me.

Saturday's race was only Council wide. Yankee Council is comprised of only the 6 Districts in SE CT. The rest of our small state is still 5 times larger in area. More research to be done.

Steve

Steve,

Yes, from what I gather there is another council in connecticut called the Connecticut Rivers Council. It is comprised of I think 12 districts. Here is the link..

http://www.ctrivers.org/
John.

[Stephen's Dad]

John,

I was speaking with our Scout Master this evening as we picked our children up from school. It seems there are 4 councils in all. CT Yankee is ours. CT Rivers which you found. Housatonic Council which I knew of. And the very small Greenwich Council of lower Fairfield County.

I Googled them all & found this link:

http://www.scouter.com/Net_Roster/Boy_S ... nnecticut/

Scouter.com is missing our entire Pack, so it hardly serves as a definitive resource. But it does give an idea of the scope of a true statewide event.

Steve

[Pinewood King]

John,

I was speaking with our Scout Master this evening as we picked our children up from school. It seems there are 4 councils in all. CT Yankee is ours. CT Rivers which you found. Housatonic Council which I knew of. And the very small Greenwich Council of lower Fairfield County.

I Googled them all & found this link:

http://www.scouter.com/Net_Roster/Boy_S ... nnecticut/

Scouter.com is missing our entire Pack, so it hardly serves as a definitive resource. But it does give an idea of the scope of a true statewide event.

Steve

Since there are some small districts it could go pack->district->state. The state races would just invite the top 3 cars from all of the districts. We could essentially skip the council event. I am not sure who would want to take on the task of coordinating a state race.

I should talk with our cub master. I know he was telling me a while back that he had visions of our pack holding the districts. Not sure how you get to host them. Pack 168 did a good job with the districts this year, I would probably change a few things though. They did a lot better job then the group 2 years back. There was no timer and the winning car stayed on the track to race the next set of cars in that heat. So if your car was the #1 car you had to win every race in the heat to make it to the finals where the 7 cars that one each of the heats raced. Needless to say most of the cars that were in the finals were the higher number cars (they had to win less races).

I'll stop rambling.
John.