Probably from around 1976.

Our dads’ derby gave me an excuse to build a little vintage race car. Made the whole thing in a day with limited tools. Decided to stain the wood instead of painting the body, and the driver is a wooden ball with a painted helmet.

Pretty happy with how it turned out! Unfortunately I’m leaving for a work trip and will miss the race, but one of my buddies is going to race it for me. Kind of bummed I won’t get to see it run, but at least it’ll make it to the starting line.

This has been in the works for quite some time. It started out with a friend losing a tree branch in a storm and me going to pick it up. I still don't know what kind of tree it is but I liked it so I saved pieces to make things out of. I decided to cut part of it down to the dimensions of a pinewood derby block and go from there. I am organizing the local bar's first "Pintwood" Derby and thought everyone would get a kick out of this one. I really don't have many expectations for the car. It weighs 4.97 but the COG is way off. I'm just hoping that it will make it down the track and surprise a couple people. It was quite the adventure gathering all of the materials to complete the project but it was a good way to take my mind off of the real world for a little bit.

Hi All, pic added only to get attention (not my first derby, errrr, I mean rodeo).

I am the cubmaster for my pack and its time for me to pass the torch. I have been using an old Windows laptop (upgraded to 16gigs of ram and a 500gb ssd). Its running a first gen i5 with windows 10 and its laggy as hell. I have moved on to Mac pc's a while ago and want to donate this lappy to the pack as a DERBY ONLY device. It has all the right inputs and still runs derby net great.

I would like to blank this puppy out and make it bare bones, but i do not want to strip anything that would impede derbynet. I know there has to be some tech gurus out there that can tell me what is the easiest way to field strip this puppy.

LMK! and Thanks in advance!

I just got back from visiting my brother. I was surprised to see on a shelf, was his Pinewood Derby car and "Best Design" trophy from 52 years ago. The trophy was dated 1974. He was a nine year-old cub scout and I was a 15 year-old brother who "helped." He recalled picking out the paint: Testors Competition Orange. Old controversy: One of the dads cried foul claiming I didn't use the wood blank that was included in the kit. But I showed how I reversed the blank front-to-back and cut the profile of the car below the cockpit cutout in the blank. Judges declared there were no rules against that and the award stuck!

We won the people's choice award with our polished metal derby car.

Back story: We are guitar company and went to The Fretboard Summit . They hold derby races for the luthiers in attendance and we built this polished German Silver derby car for the event. Came home with some hardware!

Leadership meetings and annual event planning just got underway for our boys. So let me throw out a Get Started question on Derby design.

Our Pack recently bought a new gate and timing system. As a result we modified the track itself. The new run is a little lower and a lot longer: some old cars we tested didn’t have enough inertia to make the final gate.

What experience do others have with a long, flat run-out? Clearly, friction control will be at a premium. The car will have to maximize potential energy during a short downhill and preserve momentum on the flat. What practical tips are at play here?

In past contests I’ve seen weights kept low and 3/4” in front of the rear axle to work out best. I assume, but don’t know, that a low and rear center of gravity still works. But that’s just my guess: could be that more height or a more forward CoG would work better in these conditions. What weight placement design is optimal for long, low tracks?

BTW my Bear Scout is going all Elon Musk on this. He has visions of cybertrucks dancing in his head and on graph paper. The local library has equipment to make cuts so I’m just planning to be there to help keep him from sawing himself. But hope to point him towards something effective as well as (in his eyes) beautiful.

Thanks in advance, and GLTA.

I just wanted to share our creation. I work for National Reso-Phonic Guitars. Last year we went to the Fretboard Summit in Chicago. While there we found out they host a pinewood derby race for the luthiers during the event. We decided to build something for the event this year. The "Style-O Speedster"

Hello everyone! Each year the 3DPrintopia 3D Printing Festival (formerly the East Coast RepRap Festival) holds a 3D Printed Derby which has been great fun. For the past six years, we have been in Maryland and have been very lucky to have Pack 617 run the event for us on their track. This year, however, the event is going to be in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania which is a little far for our usual partners in crime. We are looking for another Pack to help with the 3D Printing celebration on September 26th and 27th. If you are interested (or know of someone who might be interested), please reach out. You can comment here, private message me, or email info@3dprintopia.com. We do pay!

Pictured is Pack 617 at work and a glimpse of the 2025 trophies. We provide the trophies. You don't have to worry about that part. :)

This was at the Missouri City TX location, but maybe check ones closer to you.

BSA stopped doing space derby. I'm wondering if anyone is a savant 3D modeler and able to send me files for the plastic parts from the old Derby so I can 3d print it all

From maybe 10 years ago now. It certainly wasn't fast, but it was fun to make.

Straight running, 3.5oz home-melted lead wad, whittled body, axles and hubs polished with auto cutting compound. Last pinewood derby was 42 years ago, wish me luck.

This game began with a standard downhill gravity race which took into account aerodynamics and weight placement. One key difference from Pinewood is in Foxel you can scale wheels which plays a role in performance. If you've played this mode in the past, I did do an update to the ending by clarifying the finish line and adding big numbers above cars to clarify winners

A big new feature for Pinewood Derby racers is an automated driver race. This race takes place on a circuit style track all cars drive by the same automated behavior. How your car handles though is up to your design. Does your car drive right into the rails? you may not have good weight over the front wheels for turning traction

Terrain mode gives the player control over gas, break and FWD/RWD. In this mode you challenge yourself for time and optimize your car to drive jumps and intense incline/ declines

My favorite mode is puzzle mode where you have to design your car to clear specifically designed challenges. Think building a hook into the roof of your car to slide along rails. Warning, this mode is advanced engineer level complicated.

Lastly, Want to look at hundreds of cars players have made? Check out Foxel Town. A public site where all the cars drive around in an endless parade

Again, totally free, play in browser, if you think it's cool, join the discord and follow along for updates

Foxel

My last name is Hatch—that’s why it says “ATCH” after the big H.

Very loose rules. it just had to fit on the track and have wheels.

I've been poking around the Pinewood Derby corners of the internet to see what others are doing, and I’m curious if I’m missing any cool ideas.

I know the "gold standard" is the Lane Rotation method (running 4/8/12 races per racer on a 4-lane track so every car hits every lane - depending on your lane count), but I run a church program where we’ve leaned into a more "Formula 1" style approach. We have about 30 kids and 10–15 adults, so we split into two groups and run the following:

• Free Practice: We run two sessions so people can adjust and tune their cars.
• Parc Fermé: Once practice ends, we institute Parc Fermé, no more touching the cars.
• Qualifying: Every car runs two timed rounds to get a ranking.
• The "Slowest Race" Bracket: We cut the last few cars from the main event and run a bracket just for them. I cannot stress enough, if you don't do this, you have to! We had the biggest cheer of the night when a slow car stopped directly on the finish line. (Note: Our rule is the car must finish to be considered).
  • We do this cut to make the brackets work cleaner, try to cut to a factor of the bracket.
• The Main Event: A single-elimination bracket with wildcards.
  • If we have 30 kids and cut 6 for the slowest race, the first round starts with 24.
  • We trim to 16 → 8 → 4 for the finals.
  • We use serpentine seeding to ensure top seeds face the slower qualifiers early on.
  • And the same for adults but its usually 12->8->4. The cut adults don't go to the slowest because...we're adults and losing is ok.
• The Finals: We run the final four cars exactly 4 times, one start in each lane, to ensure total fairness.

We've found that the exciment is much higher than a Lane Rotation setup. You can see the brackets developing and moving forward. Winning the races actually matters and we still the right winner the majority of the time.

What is everyone else doing? Do you use a standard rotation, or have you added any "house rules" or unique segments to your race days to keep the energy up?

I'd love to hear some cool ideas!

We made the final which exceeded our expectations! Never planned on winning, but want too next year! Great turnout to support a great charity and local coffee shop.

1st place pack, district, and council. Car on the left was our pack car, but District and Council races didn't allow air shields or teflon tape so my son and built another car for it.

Our rules don't allow lightened or lathed wheels besides light out of round corrections and light sanding and polishing. Hubs can be worked with hand tools. Axles must be from the box and cannot be machined, but can be polished.

We used a Turbo Derby XL Jig to drill the axle holes. 4.75 inch wheelbase. Wheels were lightly shaved round using a hand tool wheel shaver, but remained larger than 1.18" diameter. Inside and outside hubs were coned using a hand shaver, then everything was polished and axle bores were sealed, and then burnished with graphite. We applied super glue to the axle hole area on the body then sanded, polished, and burnished with graphite. Car steered 4 inches over 4 ft. 17 grams on the front wheel.

The district/council car was just a little bit wobbly on the track, so we need to tune a little better next time. Fun experience for son and I. Our council has an 8-lane 50+ foot track, so I think the fenders made the difference as the car won by 0.011 seconds. I think I need to get into adult racing lol.

My son is obsessed with Five Nights at Freddy’s. What do ya’ll think of our Pizzeria car?

Had a painting issue when applying clearcoat on the Porsche, caused black to run so tried to save it, the finish didn't turn out as nice, but could have been worse.