AWANA Grand Prix

It's time for the annual AWANA Grand Prix or Pinewood Derby, whichever name you prefer. This is Grey's first year to participate, and we were a little in the dark as to what all this entails. But we bought our kit thinking all this would require is paint and wheel attachment. I didn't realize we would be receiving a block of wood we had to design, cut, glue, sand and so on. At the Davis house if something can't be done with a screwdriver, hammer, or a plunger, we have to outsource the job. Fortunately, our friends, Darla and Jim Streater took pity on our sawless selves and offered to help. When I say help, I mean Jim helped Grey pick the design, sketch it, cut it, sand it, add the structural details, weigh it, offer suggestions on how to paint it and make it even more aerodynamic, and Darla fixed us a nice lunch and put up with us for 3 or so hours. We're thinking about asking them to adopt us.

Here is the design we had on our own. I call it the Houston Metro Bus design. (Hey, I've seen them move pretty fast, well, sorta fast once they got going)
Here is what Jim did, using the same block of wood, with the design Grey picked. Grey was all excited.

Here is a comparison between the two. You make up your own mind.

Since we obviously went with the far superior race car, the next challenge was painting and giving it some of Grey's personality. So this is what we came up with. We call her:

"Gator Raid"

(We weigh in tonight and race tomorrow afternoon.)