Scouting, Volume 68, Number 4, September 1980 Page: 61
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A JUMBO
SIZE
PINEWOOD
DERBY
BY WILLIAM ROBERTS
Photographs by Art Shay
INDIANAPOLIS IS HOME to the Indy
500. the most prestigious auto race of all.
Not to be completely outshown. its neigh-
bor. Fort Wayne, now has the Indy's Cub
Scouting counterpart, a super pinewood
derby. Call it the Fort Wayne 80.
By pinewood derby standards, the track
is a monster 80 feet long and 10 feet high
at the starting line. What's more, each
pinewood car is timed electronically by a
sophisticated system capable of measuring
finishes in the milliseconds and showing
immediate results on television screens
alongside the track.
The Fort Wayne 80 was run for the first
time last spring as the highlight of the
Anthony Wayne Area Council's celebra-
tion of Cub Scouting's 50th anniversary.
Because of space limitations in the Glen-
brook Mall where the derby was held, an
eight-foot section had to be lopped off the
eight-lane track, so the first council derby
was in fact the Fort Wayne 72.
For those uninitiated into the mysteries
of Cub Scouting, it should be explained
that a pinewood derby is a series of races
by gravity-powered model cars built by
Cub Scouts with the help of their parents.
The derby is designed to bring parents and
boys together on a Cub Scout project.
Most derbies are held within a single pack,
but district and council-wide competitions
have become common in recent years.
Your average pinewood derby track has
a starting line at eyeball level on a Cub
Scout. The course slopes to the floor over
about 16 feet and ends in a straightaway of
another 16 feet or so.
It is not known whether the Anthony
Wayne Area track is the largest ever built,
but there's not much doubt that its timing
and recording devices are unparalleled.
Because all labor and materials were do-
nated by the business community,
Scouters. and interested engineers, the
track's value is unknown, but expert es-
timates ranged upward from $5,000.
The Super Pinewood Derby was born in
early 1979 as the council's volunteer and
professional leaders considered how best
to commemorate Cub Scouting's golden
anniversary. During a lull in the discus-
sion. Council Vice-President for Cub
Scouting William Dunkley mused, "Why
not have a councilwide pinewood derby?
We've never done that before."
Thunderbird District Executive Tim
Wrozek chimed in. "Sure, why don't we
have a super derby with a track 20 feet
high and 80 feet long?" Although the final
height was scaled down to 10 feet, the
super derby idea took off from there.
"And." laughs Tim Wrozek. "don't tell
anybody, but I don't even like pinewood
derbies."
As always, the council called on volun-
teers with special expertise to turn the
dream into reality. For starters, there was
Irv Rickert. a Pokagon District commit-
teeman and assistant Cubmaster who is
chief metallurgist at Warner Gear, a divi-
sion of Borg-Warner in Auburn, Ind. He
enlisted engineers who are accustomed to
designing gears to scale up the normal
pinewood derby track. "We just took the
sketches in Cub Scout Activities and pro-
gressed from there," he said. "Child's play
for an engineer." (continued on page 62)
Scouters in Indiana 's Anthony
Wayne Council think big. Where
else are you likely to find a
72-foot pinewood derby track
with all kinds of electronic timers?
Scouting September 1980
61
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 68, Number 4, September 1980, periodical, September 1980; Irving, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth353701/m1/61/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.