Oh man, what a Derby Day! There were so many great car designs, both creative and cool. There was such strong participation: 43 out of 52 rostered Scouts. And so many fast cars. It's like everyone who's been around a few years is upping their game. And then there's a whole new crop of racers from the Lion ranks whose engines really roared right out of the gate. Traditionally, we have a Best Lion award just as a feel-good consolation prize for newcomers learning the ropes. But that was entirely unnecessary this year as the Lions were extremely competitive from top to bottom. In fact, they won 2 of the 3 top finisher trophies and we wound up giving our Top Lion to the 3rd best Lion who was 6th overall.
I better just cut to the chase: #1 Hunter Phillips (Lion) got only 1 point all day. That means in 11 heats, he got only one 2nd place finish. #2 Wren Onopa (Lion) basically had to duel with Hunter over and over, they tied a few times which enabled them to escape points longer. But ultimately, Hunter's X-wing fighter shot down his fellow Tiger's car for the big blue trophy. #3 Matt Mullin (Bear) is no stranger to the winner's circle, he's a contender every year. And then #4 Colin Hatton (Bear) and #5 Andrew Phillips (Wolf) each qualified for districts as well. Then #6 Gus Johansen got that top Lion prize. And to round out the top 10, we had Bryce Bingaman (Bears) #7, Archie Pham (Lions) #8, William Volovnik (Bears) #9, and Sylvia Garrett (Webelos) #10. Full race results are here as a PDF.
If the races are the heart of the Derby, then the creativity prizes are the soul. You can really see the kid's imagination and their parent's ingenuity on full display. If our pack stays this large, we're gonna need more medals. This year we only rewarded the top 3 vote getters, but we allowed parents and siblings to vote to try and remove any popularity biases. In the end, the Phillips family really had a heyday, because both boys got creativity prizes. Andrew got bronze with a sweet-looking lacquered race-car in the Cub Scout blue and gold colors. Leo Johansen got silver for a hilarious Kitty-litter box entry complete with plastic poop and a plastic cat. Finally, it was a clean sweep of top prizes for Hunter Phillips as his X-wing fighter was not just fast but also attention-getting. I personally want to give honorable mentions to a bunch of cars that wowed me though. Trey DeGulis had a whole diorama on the joy of fishing and crabbing on his car. Garrett Kroeger had a 3-D Angry Birds display complete with the slingshot/catapult. Gus Johansen had an S-shaped snake that had to be hard for Bob Quillen to cut. William Volovnik had a sleekly-lacquered tribute to the good ol' U. S. of A. that had intricate lettering of "We the People." My son Colin Hatton had the idea of a guitar complete with real strings, nails served as tuning nobs, and tungsten weights created the frets. And there were so many more cool ideas, I could go on and on.
I would like to finish by thanking all those who put in a lot of preparation time to make this event a success. Tim Dougherty and Ashley Phillips for setting up and running 2 computers (just in case). Tim Johansen and Chef Rich for running the kitchen. Bill Volovnik and Patrick Hutton for scouting out other tracks and making arrangements with Pack 11 that we never actually followed through on. Former Cubmaster Chris Shelton for once again restoring and donating the track. He swears it's 50 years old, but it's run 9 years since his own initial restoration so it's served us well. Matt Gietl and Bill for manning the starter's gate. Su Pham and all those previously mentioned for coming out last night to set up and make sure every last thing was checked and doublechecked. Plus those who came out early today or stayed late to set up and clean up chairs. We are only as good as our volunteers. Clearly this was the best example of collaboration, we've had in some time. Much appreciated.
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