A longstanding Cub Scout tradition, the Pinewood Derby is one of the year’s most anticipated events. Scouts have been building their own cars and competing in races since 1953.
Pack 994 Scouts receive an official Pinewood Derby car kit from the Pack in December. The kit contains a block of wood, 4 nails (axles) and 4 wheels. 
The design is all up to the Scout’s imagination. A quick search of the internet and you can see just how wide and varied the designs are.
Pack 994 holds its Pinewood Derby on a Saturday morning in February. We may start early, but there is plenty of coffee and breakfast treats to get you started! Heats are done by Cub Scout rank. There are winners for both speed and best in show at each rank level. The top 3 finishers of each rank then move on to a Pack-wide competition. This is where the races really get fast and exciting! Scouts can then choose to sign-up with the Appalachian District and race their cars in the District races.
The Bear Dens are traditionally responsible for setting up and coordinating the Pinewood Derby, but it does take a lot of hands and there are always people willing to help.
Fun Facts
Did You Know?
- A fast Pinewood Derby® car can reach a speed of nearly 20 miles per hour. Pretty good for a little block of wood!
- If a Pinewood Derby® car racing down the track was enlarged to the size of a real automobile, it would be speeding at more than 200 miles an hour. That’s fast!
- The first Pinewood Derby® was run in 1953 at the Manhattan Beach Scout House near Los Angeles when Cubmaster Don Murphy introduced the idea to Pack 280C.
- Over the years, Cub Scouts have built close to 100 million Pinewood Derby® racers. That’s a lot of cars!
- If you lined up all the Pinewood Derby® racecars, bumper-to- bumper, they would reach more than 7,000 miles – far enough to stretch from Charlotte, North Carolina, to the North Pole!
- If every Pinewood Derby® car made this year took just one run down the track, the combined distance would be from the Earth to the Moon and back. That’s out of this world!
- Reader’s Digest magazine included the Pinewood Derby® in its 2006 Best of America list as “a celebrated rite of spring.” Way to go, Cub Scouts!
- No Pinewood Derby® car has ever used a drop of gasoline. Gravity rules!