Augie's First Pine Car Derby

Today, was the big day. It was Augie's inaugural pine car derby at St. Paul's. I'm sure it will be the first of many.

We weren't there for setup last night, but the track looked pretty sweet when we got there today. It had all sorts of high tech wires coming out of it. All the races were measured down to the millisecond and projected on a screen for everyone to see.

Gracie enjoyed a few pre-race muffins with her friends in the bleachers. Jonah's eyes were pretty big ...

... I think he was checking out all the shiny trophies.

Mr. Brooks got the party started by giving us a run down of the day's events.

The judges, meanwhile, were inspecting the cars for best craftsmanship.

This was my view of the day's races.

That's because I was drafted into service when I got there.

I was able to keep a close eye on Gracie from my perch. Looks like she was trying to take grandma's camera for a whirl.

Augie knows all about cameras, so he sat with his friends.

All the cars competed in six races, so each one got to test each lane once. Our car, I mean Augie's car, wasn't the fastest, but it finished every race. He just came in last or second to last each time.

It turns out there's an award for that. The slowest car that crosses the finish line in all its races -- not every car crossed the finish line, some were too light -- won the Turtle Award. It's probably the trickiest award to win, because you have to be slow, but not so slow that you don't finish.

Augie was pretty stoked about it. He ran right up there and accepted his award like he'd just won the World Series or something.

Maybe next year we'll try to win one of those fancy speed or craftsmanship trophies.