Pinewood Pro Blue Marlin Derby Kit | 10 Piece | Includes PRO Wheel Spacer

We ordered this Pinewood Derby car kit since I don't have any woodworking tools or skills, and we missed the Cub Scout meeting where the parents help the kids cut the woodblock into a car shape. The kit arrived quickly and looked beautiful! My son and I then went to a local craft store where they have an entire Pinewood Derby section. We bought decals for the body and wheels. It took a couple of hours to put together. This included not just the car--which was fairly easy--but also the layout and placement of all the decals. It's really quite beautiful. This kit is expensive, but if you're in a time crunch, or, like me, you're kinda' stupid with woodworking, this is a nice solution. The paint job is like a new car. It's perfect! Also, the weighting is also perfect. It weighed in at 4.85 oz., based on our pack's derby-car scale. I don't know where they put the weights. It's at the rear axle someplace, but you can't see it. This car also has three holes bored into the underside of the car. This is handy. They make the car a little lighter to accommodate for stickers and glue and whatever else you decide to put on the car. To bring it up to 5 oz., we packed BSA putty in these holes, which worked perfectly. When the car was complete, we rolled it on the ground, and it tracked a little to the left. I tried to fix this, but there's no instructions on how to do this. I read online that you have to turn one of the front-wheel nails until it starts to track to the right, then manipulate the nail's rotation until it tracks straight. I wasn't able to get my pliers to grab the nail well enough to turn it. So we decide to just use the car as-is and hope for the best. The one complaint I have about the kit is the gap tool. They add this gap tool, which isn't referenced in the instructions at all. There's also another tool they give you that ensures the wheels are inserted straight. This tool worked, but it's very awkward to use. The tool to assist inserting the wheels already accommodates a gap, so my son and I didn't understand why this other gap tool was provided. Since it's not mentioned in the instructions, we just ignored it and never used it. Come Derby Day, we were ready to go with this beautiful car! Our Pack doesn't check for the raised wheel, so we were fine there. This kit gives you two holes for one of the wheels. One hole raises one wheel a little high, so it doesn't touch the track. The car rides with three wheels touching the track, not four. If your rules forbid this, there’s also the standard hole you can use. We weighed in an had our car registered the night before, and the Pack took it and scheduled it for the next morning's heats. So how did my son do? He SMOKED everyone! It seemed unfair, but it's totally legal. The first heats were for his Wolf den. He won 1st place in five of the six heats. Then he progressed to the Pack heats. I lost track, but he won 1st place in most of those heats. One other car beat him, but on the next race, my son's car won. Back and forth they went until the other car lost to another car in at least one other of the 10 heats. The final result: my son's car won 1st place against all the other Pack 332 cars, which was between 30 and 40 cars. Some races, he was more than a car's length ahead of the competition. It was amazing to watch. We were stunned! Even with this car tracking a little to the left, it totally slaughtered the competition! It was also voted "Fastest Looking Car" and took that prize also. I told my son, he couldn’t have done any better than this. He took all the top prizes! We heartily recommend this Pinewood Derby car kit. It's expensive, but it's a solution in a box. All you have to do is take some careful time to put the car together. This involves using the supplied graphite to pack the wheel holes and coat the screws, and then carefully install the wheels. After that, decorate the car however you like. When that's done, weight it and add additional weight with BSA derby putty or whatever works. As the Scouts always say, the Pinewood Derby is all about doing a project together and coming together with the other Scouts to have fun. I was careful to tell my son this isn't about winning. If you win, GREAT... enjoy it. But if you lose, that's okay too. The main idea is to have fun! Buying this car was more about fixing the issue of me not being able to properly prepare a car for him. I never anticipated this car would do as well as it did.

thank you thank you thank you. i bought two cars from you guys. the black one and the blue one. they were hands down the fastest cars in the competition. My one son took fastest time over all. My other son took second. The only car that beat him was his brothers and the only car that beat his brothers was his.Very proud of my boys and i owe it all to pinewood pro. i was hesitant to pay the $ but had i known this was the outcome i would of payed double. thank you again and again and again.

Won 1st place! I was skeptical, but just didn't have the time this year to make our own, so I bought this one. My son was disappointed that we didn't construct our own like last year, but that feeling quickly dissipated once he won race after race and took home 1st place. Maybe it feels a bit underhanded, but we have no regrets.

We got this kit and won FIRST place! It’s way more $ than your average kit from Hobby Lobby....but worth every penny in my opinion.

All I can say is 4.1.second car with the wheels

Very good. Worked great. Won many races. I recommend lifting one front wheel for speed.

This is completely cheating and goes against what the entire program is about. The pinewood derby is about the child building the car, learning skills, and learning that you actually have to work at things to achieve your goals.

Deff wasn't a winner. 5th place out of 7 cars. Deff go back to building from scratch