The Back Seat Winner

The Hubs and I  have won at many things. We are winners.

But there was a chance our son might lose, that he might not be a winner this year. He has won twice in two prior states in the Awana Grand Prix. We prepped him the whole way to the race, just in case. We made our claims of love for him, of our joy that he is our son. He was so quiet, his six year old head pressed into the gray leather headrest. We repeated ourselves a few times. Still just a quiet "uh-huh" from the rear of the minivan, barely heard over his two younger brothers between us.

We arrived at the competition and trailed the family to the basement. Dr. Romance was armed with his paparazzi camera. (I will have to take a picture of his telephoto monstrosity for you.) Definitely we arrived in a basement of winners. We packed in with 100 other tense folks. Some stood poised with axle lube and babied their cars. Others buzzed around adding weights. Dr. Romance and I gave each other a glance with raised eyebrows. These folks were intense for sure. I looked away quickly, too nervous to read his eyes.

But our sweet son, our first born, our first born just as I am first born, just as Dr. Romance is first born,  

yet so unlike us in so many ways, 

had no pit in his stomach. We are strong waves. He is a calm ocean. He unpacked his car quietly, unshaken by the table judges, and the hovering helicopter adults in the room. He is so unassuming, so compliant. He yielded his car to be judged for design. He knew that his design was simple. He did not expect that trophy, amongst the princess slipper, iPod, or Wii remote .

He was battling for speed, battling in the most demure and reserved way. 

He lined up his car on the track. He was chosen for the first heat, where he would race four times, once in each lane.

He lined up his car 41 inches in the air, somewhere around his first grade chin.

Thirty feet straight down the race track, his yellow bullet clearly smoked the pack. But just two inches shy of the finish line, his car toppled to the side. It did not cross the finish line. It did not count. He received no score. A piece of tape that cradled a shiny quarter to the underbelly of his car started to drag, started to uncurl, and toppled the car. Though Son1 attempted to blow dry the glued quarter that would exactly weight his car to the five ounce limit, it did not dry. Thus the tape.

The entire crowd AHHHHHED when his car shot out from the pack.There was no competition. A horrified 100 voices ohhhhhed when the yellow cannonball of a car fell off the red track.

And our first grader retrieved his car with no reaction, no readable emotion, and ambled thirty feet back to the ramp that measured just to his chin. Dr. Romance checked the car once over, and handed it back to Son1.

He continued his task, not phased by the hundred onlookers. That is him, every single day.

(Those hairy arms belong to a supervising adult, not to our family.)

And he watched only his car. He watched it complete three more lanes of competition. And he was done. We now waited for all of the other heats of cars in his division to finish their races. We were unsure he would advance to the semi-finals.

Dr. Romance and I sat back. We watched the over-lubrication of cars, the legal tinkering of weight, the balancing of wheels. We analyzed the competition. We repeated to one another that we were proud of him, that he is a winner. And yes, we ran the numbers and the averages on his competition, trying to predict his fate. We are math people.

The semi-finals were announced. He made it! I was squealing a high school squeal as silently as I could. I jumped up and down with my feet firmly planted on the ground, eyeing my oblivious 17 month old. I faked my disinterest to those hundred voices. But there is a proud 3 year old sports caster that let all onlookers know his brother advanced to the semi-finals, and finally to the Final Four.

And though his yellow car blew past all cars in every heat, he offered humility. Before the awards ceremony we knew he was a winner, but we had known that before we left the house.

And when his name was called, and when he collected his trophy, he made no noise.

Mark the Hammerhead Shark

When things were crazy with Hubs gone and my mom in Hawaii, the rest of us were "car-a-zee." Unfortunately, Hubs was not in Hawaii for the Awana Grand Prix. But he and Son1 crafted a car over several nights before the big race.

The Awana Grand Prix is a pinewood derby race. Over 5,000 events are held annually at local clubs nationally. Each clubber purchases a pine block of wood and standard wheels. Everyone constructs a car that meets standard specifications to race in a four lane car race.

So Hubs and I discussed car design at length. I suggested our theme should reflect our time in Hawaii. Hmmm. Well, Son1 is CRAZY CRAZY for sharks, as in, he loves non-fiction shark books and ogles the majestic creature in aquariums and on TV. He knows sharks by their specific names. Get it? So we all settled on a shark car. Hubs called up a coworker with a band saw and a rotary sander in a garage with no light. So after sunset, in limited light, he made a few cuts and sanded it into a shark shape. At home, he and Son1 kept working. He pulled out his Dremel tool and mounted some glasses on his nose. Well Son1 figured he needed safety goggles, too. So he dug into some scuba equipment. Hubs and I had a good laugh.
But he chucked the scuba mask for more comfortable swim goggles.
Can you guess what kind of shark they are making? Let me say I am far less confident and more petrified of my children using anything that requires electricity than Hubs.
The next night Hubs and Son1 got to sanding. If you haven't figured out what kind of shark this is, well....hmmmm...they birth their young on the Windward side of our island every year. Maybe you have seen the show on the Discovery channel.A few years back we sprayed the lamps in our kitchen a stainless steel color. Hubs plucked that spray can from our shelf and together they dolled up that pinewood shark until he gleamed and shimmered a sharky silver.Hubs assembled the little car, complete with a 3 ounce weight in front. See that first little fin? That is the 3 ounce fishing weight, front loaded. The car could weigh a maximum of five ounces. We borrowed a mail scale from my neighbor, and sure enough, the HAMMERHEAD shark made weight. You can't see Mark the Hammerhead Shark's front grill, but it is a mean read set of chompers. Googly eyes rolled on either side of the head. Son1 added the number for on each side of the tail fin. Hubs asked him what number he wanted on his car. He looked at him rather obviously and said, "Four, 'cause I'm four!" We placed Mark high on a bookshelf until the night of the Grand Prix. I explained to Son1 that this was the only car he had. I wasn't going to craft another one for him if this one broke. So, he eyed it every night until the big event. See those stripes behind Son2? That is the only proof I have my mom was there.

The Awana club served dinner, but Son1 was too excited to eat. I started to cut his little brother's hot dog, but he was so impatient he grabbed Son1's hot dog and chomped it down whole. This is my lightweight child that can outeat any preschooler hands down. Where all of his food goes, we haven't a clue. Sure enough, he ate his own hot dog, some veggies, and everyone's chips, before dessert.

Weren't these cute?

After dinner, the cars were weighed, measured, and visually inspected for standards. we voted for best design in each category. There were over 60 cars and voting seemed like forever. See Mark? He was #3.

Just before the race, Son1 took his place at the sidelines. He had a great seat.
Finally it was Mark the Hammerhead Shark's turn to race.

Sadly, he did not win for speed. Hubs considered purchasing some graphite wheels for Mark. But he thought $30 on plastic wheels for our 4 year old son's car was a little excessive. While I was videoing, the father of the child's car that beat Mark the Hammerhead Shark grinned and told everyone he had bought graphite wheels. But that was ok. Mark was a winner, too, and not just in our hearts. Guess who won first place for best design?!?!?

By now, my kids were melting down, so my mom and I left and loaded them in the car. This was just the preschool race. They had still more grade levels to go. Just as I was buckling my kids in the car, my cell phone rang. What was Hubs doing awake on the East Coast? He wanted to know how Mark had performed. I laughed. It was well after midnight there. He told Son1 how he was proud of him.

As for me? I kept fighting with our desktop on uploading video. So Hubs never saw the video until he got home. But when he did, hmmm....he started to think about next year. And Son1? He was on Cloud Nine. He loved his trophy and he made sure to tell me that the packers should take great care of his Mark.