Some time ago I asked you hoons about Pinewood Derby race cars. I was deprived as a child, so I never got to do anything like that. I read all your comments and googled most of the internet extensively. Some advice was good, some was great, and some just totally wrong. Serves me right for asking.
The outcome of all this research, drawings, designs, cutting, painting, attaching, polishing, weighting is pictured above. We had three designs: a limo, a pickup truck, and a Porsche 911. We nixed the limo right away. I wanted to do the pickup because I made it aerodynamic and I could have easily placed all kind of weight in the bed, over the rear wheels. But no, my daughter wanted fancy not redneck, so it was the Porsche 911.
Several issues came up right away. First, the guy at the hardware store who was doing the cutting for all of the Girl Scout team (I don’t have a decent saw), could only do straight cuts. Crap, that means no iconic headlights and no iconic whale tail. I quickly decided that we should go with a slant-nose and typical non-spoiler rear. In order to cut down on weight and reduce the center of gravity, we decided on a cabriolet model.


I think it came out pretty good, if a bit Ferrari-esque from the front. My big design flop was in the rear, where the engine cover goes directly to the bumper line. I forgot the vertical taillight strip that sits above the bumper and below the engine cover lip. My daughter sanded it, painted it, and finished the details off with a sharpie.
In the interior, about an inch forward of the rear axle, I drilled a 1.5” space for the ballast. Low to the ground, and in perfect location. The folded convertible top is made of clay and is pretty heavy itself. The painted body weighed only 2.6 ounces, which wasn’t good – too light.
A ballast of rolled up washers fit perfectly into the interior tub. My daughter insisted on a driver, a Lego Goblin. We glued in the top, the driver, ballast, and the license plates into place.

On a separate table we polished the axles. I put each axle into a drill and used a set of small files to smooth them down. We finished it off with some chrome polish. We matched each axle to each wheels and put the slowest spinners in the front. This Porsche rides on three wheels, by the way, with the front right wheel slightly raised for drag reduction.
I have made a mistake of not fitting the wheels and axles on before the car was done. The first one was going in, so I carefully hammered it in. I used a drill bit some carefully enrage the other axle openings. Before inserting the axles, we put some graphite on them.

The finished Porsche weights in somewhere between 4.90 and 4.95 ounces – my scale is not that accurate. It a bit under the maximum, and desired, 4.999999999999999999 ounces, but it’s good enough.
The race is at 4:30pm today. Wish us luck! We’ll report back with the results.