Last Call: Who really built that car?

Jeff Glucker

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People have been helping their children cheat at the Pinewood derby for eons. Usually though, the goal is to make it not so obvious. Kamil Kaluski helped put a car together and was dismayed with the rest of the competition. Well at least one member of the competition.

Kamil is correct. It’s highly unlikely that a ten-year-old kid turned their Pinewood Derby wedge into an accurate representation of a wide-body Cobra. A Cobra that comes complete with windshielf frame, side popes, bumper, roll hoop, blue and white paint, Cragar sticker, and a race suit and helmet-wearing driver.

No fucking way.

Last Call indicates the end of Hooniverse’s broadcast day. It’s meant to be an open forum for anyone and anything. Thread jacking is not only accepted, it’s encouraged.

About

Jeff Glucker

Jeff Glucker

Jeff Glucker is the co-founder and Executive Editor of Hooniverse.com. He’s often seen getting passed as he hustles a 1991 Mitsubishi Montero up the 405 Freeway. IG: @HooniverseJeff

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15 responses to “Last Call: Who really built that car?”

  1. WinstonSmith84 Avatar
    WinstonSmith84

    That’s amateur hour compared to the sculpture my friend’s Dad made to win the design award at my Pinewood Derby. Kamil helped someone build their car and was disappointed at how much better some other cheater’s car turned out? Cry me a river. I built my own derby car, and it sucked. My friend’s engineer father started by cutting his block of wood with two lengthwise scallops, so from the front it was close to paper thin for the length of its center line. Then he cut the remaining wood into almost a figure eight shape from front to back. Then he took the two pieces of wood removed from the original cuts and turned them into enveloping fenders that attached to the sides of the center block seamlessly and were contoured and smoothed to a level of perfection that Fisher Body would never have bothered to achieve. The fenders wrapped around the wheels almost to the surface of the track, and that was the car’s undoing in completion. All the graphite in the world wouldn’t get it down the track as fast as the cars of fathers who put their effort into reducing friction instead of making an E-type Jaguar look like an AMC Pacer.

    Reply
    1. Kamil K Avatar
      Kamil K

      Whut?
      The only person I helped was my seven year old son and I didn’t even help his all that much. He did the design, cutting, and paining. It turned out as well as you’d expect it to.
      This Cobra was one of his/our competitors, supposedly made by a kid that’s younger than ten. No, it didn’t win.

      Reply
      1. WinstonSmith84 Avatar
        WinstonSmith84

        You helped you son. The Cobra enthusiast helped his son. Your grievance is merely that he did a better job. I made my car with no help other than sponsorship in that my parents bought the pinewood derby car(four wheels, four nails, and a block of wood, IIRC) and some paint.

        Reply
        1. Kamil K Avatar
          Kamil K

          Dude… there is no grievance.

          Reply
  2. 0A5599 Avatar
    0A5599

    We had no expectation that the kids did the entire car (particularly wherever power tools were involved), but certainly required them to have made some significant effort. We gave out derisive “awards” to those cars we suspected of being engineered in wind tunnels and then sold via ebay. The cars that were obviously a kid’s handiwork got a much nicer prize.

    The pit area was a set of plastic folding tables. Invariably, some kid would bump into the table and cars would drop to the floor. One of the speed tips was calculating where to be in the check-in line that would result in a number corresponding to the middle of the table. That increased the odds of having the car not fall off the table, so the axle geometry had a chance of being somewhat correct during the race.

    http://assetsds.cdnedge.bluemix.net/sites/default/files/styles/big_2/public/feature/images/make_your_jdm_ride_cool_and_lightweight.jpg

    Reply
  3. Zentropy Avatar
    Zentropy

    A ten-year old obviously applied the stickers. That misaligned “17” is an OCD trigger from hell.

    Reply
  4. neight428 Avatar
    neight428

    I was a cub scout for a couple of years, but I was pretty much on my own as my parents had other things going on, evidently. My Pinewood entrant was essentially a DNQ, I think I had to bum a ride to the actual contest.

    Reply
  5. Lokki Avatar
    Lokki

    My dad built an amazing Pinewood Derby car for me back in the 60’s… Essentially a copy of Jim Clark’s Formula 1 Lotus including a driver’s head and engine-headers, it was completely hollow inside and brought back up to maximum weight by a hidden brass weight strategically placed in a location carefully calculated by my dad’s engineer friend at work. The axles were polished and chrome plated (and then repainted black except for where the wheels touched them). I seem to also recall something something about where the axle holes in wheels were filled with epoxy and redrilled but at age 10 I wasn’t privy to ALL the inner circle secrets. It sure was a beautiful car though.

    I don’t think I ever touched it until the day of the race, and honestly, some 50 years later, I don’t even remember whether ‘we’ won or not.

    Reply
    1. 0A5599 Avatar
      0A5599

      http://www.jenniferbraceras.com//wp-content/uploads/2012/09/photo.jpg

      Reply
  6. Batshitbox Avatar
    Batshitbox

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4bb88b0554c5d8351da1f5b6cca0c273ba9c87e4d7eb874c1c8a0a59ae47fece.png

    This is an Alta electric dirt bike being auctioned by Farmers Insurance as salvage in Texas. I thought it was odd that it was listed as “Other Mountain Bike” instead of “Other Motorcycle”, but the kicker was, “Engine Type: No”

    Reply
    1. 0A5599 Avatar
      0A5599

      In fairness to the seller, that second part is pedantically correct. I didn’t see a place to specify motor type.

      Reply
    2. Tank Avatar
      Tank

      At first I thought it was a trials bike, Still… isn’t a dirtbike for the most part supposed to be dropped?

      Reply
  7. Tank Avatar
    Tank

    I was looking to see if it was one of the approved kits and found the site that sells that car, including much more disturbing examples. Sure, its only $20 but isn’t that not the point of this?
    https://www.derbymonkeygarage.com/pinewood-derby-car-kits-s/1820.htm

    Reply
    1. JayP Avatar
      JayP

      BSA gets a cut of the Revel sales… APPROVED!

      Reply
  8. JayP Avatar
    JayP

    Guilty. My son “built” this exact model and a year later we (I) was called out on it. His had way better paint.

    The next year I let go, made my own car. Andrew painted, sanded, painted and the only help I gave was to align the holes for the nails.
    We worked on the axles and wheels together.
    His car was the fastest in the pack, beating my car. Third was the car I built with my dad which was older than some parents.

    Reply