Keeping Busy on Halloween

My friend, Alfonso, and I made plans to meet on Halloween afternoon to design and finish our pinewood derby cars for our company's annual pinewood derby race. The race is going to take place on November 9th, so we didn't have much time to postpone the inevitable.

We agreed to meet at noon, have lunch, and begin working on our cars. Jason even assisted both of us in the preparation and assembly. We set up shop in my kitchen so that cleanup of wood dust and would chips would be relatively easy to execute.

With our designs on hand, we were ready to begin.

My Chosen Design: A Star Wars Land Speeder

Alfonso's Chosen Design: Speed Racer's Mach Five

I kept my design simple, adjusting the design so that car would give suggestion of being a Star War's land speeder instead of adding extra width and special hardware to make it look like a real land speeder.

The body

Base paint

Adding details

Finished! Now I just need a driver...

Alfonso, however, took a different approach. He glued extra pieces of wood to the original pinewood block so that he could have enough width and body to make the it resemble Speedracer's Mach Five as closely as possible. I admired his ambition. After several hours of chiseling, dremeling, and sanding, I think he ended up with a workable body.

Alfonso chiseling and dremeling during daylight hours

Alfonso and Jason taking turns bringing the car to shape during the night

The somewhat finished product

Granted, he didn't get to that point until well after midnight. I guess great design truly does take time and is a labor of love. It was fun helping him shape the wood into his vision. With a little more sanding and time for paint, he should have a really great car. I can't wait to see his finished product.

"What is art? Are we art? Is art art?"
-Lisa Turtle, character on Saved By the Bell