Little lords of the pinewood

This has very little to do with IndyCars, so most of you can skip this post. It's just a little show of congratulations to my two oldest kids, each of whom emerged victorious in the two classes of the Pinewood Derby at Pack 282 here in Arizona.

That's right - two classes, each won by an Iannucci. Feel the pride.

Here's the deal: last year in his first year of Cub Scouts, P2 built a little school bus that finished first in his den and sixth overall for the entire pack. Encouraged but motivated, he and I set forth toward researching what it would take to bring home the checkers in 2009. (Hints: reduce friction, move the weight to the back, use good wheels, and make the car durable since these little racers slam into a foam barrier at the end of each race and often flip onto the floor.)

So my little man built a low-profile stock car model, added some well-placed weights, and used some Jimmie Johnson stickers from a Lowe's Kids Workshop to complete the model. (I know, it's not an IndyCar, but if your 7-year-old can turn a block of pine into a Dallara then more power to ya.)

Older sister P1 was a bit miffed that Girl Scouts have no similar program, since she's afflicted with a massive case of "anything you can do I can do better" disease. Lucky for her they have an "Outlaw" division for relatives where there are no rules, so we found a kit that I helped assemble (meaning put together) and we added weight wherever we could. Hey, the boy put his car together by himself (sans a little drill work), but I fully admit doing a lot of the work on the Outlaw Danicar.

Especially the part about crafting the striking driver representation involving a doll from a Happy Meal, a Sharpie, and a 3-inch nail.



While waiting in line to register two moms in front of us were discussing my daughter, seeing she made a car, and one of them remembered there's a female driver named "Danica", and they both start trying to figure out what kind of car that Danica girl drives - never realizing that P1 is standing there with a DANICA PATRICK SHIRT AND CAR! Friends, our work isn't even close to being done.

Anyhow, the Outlaw division finished first, and despite having a wheel fall off at the conclusion of each race, the Danicar - which irony of ironies weighed well over twice the amount of her brother's five-ounce Jimmie Johnson stock car model - handily won every race in the Outlaw division. BY A LOT. The Outlaw division is mostly dads, so my daughter was getting some strange looks when she went to receive her congratulations.

Meanwhile, despite struggling in some of the preliminary rounds, the Jimmie Johnson car advanced to the final round of eight, where it went undefeated in the double elimination finals. My son was so excited he - honest to God - wanted to run out and by some milk. I gently informed him that's for winning the Indy 500, but offered to douse him in Gatorade. After discussion we all settled on a bottle of Sparkling Cider instead.

So congrats to my mini-mes. I posted the pic so they can show their friends and if Penske, Ganassi, Andretti-Green et al, are recruiting for any kind of junior engineering candidates, I'll be sure to forward their names to them.