ASIJ Pack 5 makes a day (and more) out of their Pinewood Derby. The Derby is held in the elementary school gymnasium. Everybody packs a lunch to bring for Saturday. They have set-up of the track in the morning, followed by weigh-in of the cars. Then around noon they (plan to) start the races. Once the races finish up around 3:00, it is time for a pool party in the high school pool. That is followed by a pizza dinner, and then games and movies. They have a sleepover in the elementary school gymnasium, and they head home the following morning after breakfast and clean up.
This was a father-son activity for our family as Greer had other ideas on what to do with the day. Drew did not plan on spending the night as he had to leave for Singapore the next day. But Cooper's friend Matthew and his dad were spending the night, so Matthew's dad took charge of Cooper for the sleepover.
Dad's summary of race day:
Well, as per usual, the first race was the race against the clock - how long will it take me to get to school this time? Record time as it turns out - Matthew's parents had done the route by bus a few times and helped out.
We got to the gym early and broke out Coop's outlaw racer. Because of the craziness of the move, a lack of tools, and missing the official car-cutting day while we were on a ski trip, we asked Coop's den leaders about using his car from last year (never know how strict things would be in this pack). They told us we either needed a new car, or he could race last year's car in the outlaw class. Coop took the path of least resistance and decided to slap on a bunch of extra weight (if he's going outlaw, why not go outlaw). Well, as it turned out, there was no outlaw class, so they had Coop race against the adults (who I think all played by the rules). A few extra ounces make a big difference as you can see in the video.
Here's Coop beating the grownup cars with his bad-boy outlaw racer.
The boys all had a great time. Strong showing by wolves and Web 1's (and me-toos) as these are the largest ranks in the pack, I believe.
The racing started a bit late - this was the first year with electronics ... those in Pack 922 probably remember a few glitches with getting the software squared away. It was no different here, but it was a great learning experience. During the downtime, the kids took good advantage of the gym and played around while waiting on those pesky adults to get their act together. I pitched in and helped with car staging to keep things moving along, and we got most of the races done before the pool party. After some swimming, we finished with the adult races, and a pack championship heat (the winners from all ranks reraced).
Pizza quickly followed, and after dinner I disappeared back home sans navigator (which made it a bit longer than the drive there), and finished prepping for my Singapore trip. Jen and Carrie (Matthew's mom) headed out to the school the next morning to pick up all the boys - Jim (Matthew's dad) included. (Note from Jen: this was my second time driving in Tokyo - I might be getting the hang of it!)
The boys had a great time, and a number of the dads (and moms) were pretty impressed with Coop's car from last year - I think I'm going to hold a seminar on axel polishing .... I'm going to pick up a bunch of low range micron metal sandpaper for next year. I expect that there will be a run on my supplies next year! Perhaps Coop will start on his car this summer (hint -hint Athan and Luke).
Back to Jen:
Mine and Greer's day included a trip to Aeon (a Super Walmart-type store) to buy new sneakers for Greer. Somehow we never did find her second pair of sneakers that were supposed to be in our ocean shipment. Going to Aeon involves three train rides, and it's a little trickier than my train rides usually are because it's on lines outside the Tokyo Metro system. At one of our changes, I was unsure which side of the platform our train was on, so I asked one of the workers. He gestured to the correct side, and we boarded the train, but we thought maybe he was pulling a joke on us.
We had to take a picture (and I think Greer even took video) because we've never been on a subway car that was even close to empty. Don't worry, more people did board right after us.
Today was also St. Patrick's Day. Greer and I were wearing green, and we both had our shamrock earrings, but we didn't have much company. I guess not many Japanese have any Irish in them. :)
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