"Now I want to dance. I want to win. I want that trophy. So dance good." - Mia, Pulp Fiction

 

Waiting for results. The Boy wonders, “Will I get Mr. Congeniality?”

Finally, finally, race day arrives. The XT-14, honed to the height of engineering perfection, lubricated with a mixture of graphite, Teflon™, moon dust, and bigfoot pee is now ready to race.

The race started at a Wilder-friendly noon. I had expected that the race would start at 6:35am, since the type of people that generally run such things are of the masochistic “gotta start the day before the Sun comes up” type that you generally want to choke. They also are generally too quick and strong to choke, though. Darn healthy, quick, early risers.

When we got there the first Tiger Den was ready to race. I watch with detachment.

Then, a winner was crowned and it was time for our Tiger Den. The cars were lined up in the starting blocks, and . . .

The Boy’s car was in first coming off the line. It careened down the well-varnished wooden track and . . .

Won. And it won the second one. And it won the third one.

I looked at The Mrs. (who was cheerfully cradling a wistfully wrestling Pugsley who wanted to wrest candy from this newborn) and said, “He’s got to be thrilled.”

The Mrs. responded, “I’m sure The Boy’s just messing around. He probably doesn’t know his car is winning.”

I looked down Gasoline Alley to the finish line, where I saw The Boy. His face was contorted in a rictus of joy.

I looked at The Mrs. “He knows.”

The Boy’s car won each and every heat. As they announced his victory and handed him his first-place trophy, The Boy said, “I won IwonIwonIwonIwonIwon!”

Which led to the later discussion of how, exactly, one behaves as a good winner.

Then, The Boy was supremely irritated. “Dad, they won’t give me my car back.”

Explaining to him that’s because he’s got another race coming, the Pack Finals, where he would go against the best of the other 10 dens in a race to see which car was the fastest didn’t make much happier since he was watching everybody from his Den take their cars and race them around the table, making “vroom, vroom” noises.

We left so all the Bears, Wolves, and Webelos could finish their races, and return later for the finals.

The Boy’s car lined up, ready for the his first race and . . . finished about the middle of the pack.

Throughout the rest of his races, he never won a heat, and finally finished up at 14 out of 22 of the winners. As you can see from the graph below, looks like the folks with the very fastest time are doing a thing or two that The Boy didn’t do. After The Boy’s previous bout of ego, I’m pretty sure that not winning the entire Pack was a good thing.

 

A graph of winning place versus time. You can see that The Boy's car was off by .07 seconds or so from first place. .07 seconds - why it takes longer than that for the Congress to spend a billion dollars!

That’s okay. I’m sure that there’s a rigorous scientific testing process that we can go through next year to ensure that every single variable that can be optimized is fully tested.

At least that’s what The Boy says.