1st place for second year

[Downhill Gravity Racing]

Bubba, the rules you posted there in reply to what I have said is all well and good. However as you know each pack across the nation has their own set of rules, and to carry that forwards, in most cases the pack rule differ from the district rules. So where those rules you posted are effective for your race, they might not apply to everyone elses. At some districts you have to race the exact car you raced at the pack level, while some allow you to build a brand new car. Some race on a wooden track at the pack level then move on to the more modern metal track at districts, or visa versa.

There is no uniform set of rules that all BSA races follow. Regardless of when a car was found to be "cheatting", as a father who has his son do 98% of the work on his car, I would not be happy to know, the father of another son worked on his car night and day so that his son could win. Bubba, I have read some of your post here on this board and you seem to be a BSA purist, until this posting/thread topic.

We love when our kids do well. So I say let the kids do well! If a father puts in lots of hard work for his child, the child does not do well, even though it appears as if has because he is holding a trophy. The fathers whom are working hard on their childs car have the best of intentions I am sure of this, but, did the child win? No, the child merely benefited.


I came back to modify my post just a little bit to add one final thought. Getting your car DQ'd during the races is not the fault of pack or districts or the parents standing around the track watching with eagle eyes, it is the fault of the parent that did all the extra work to the car that pushed the car to "illegal status." The parent of the child on the way home needs to say, "son, I am sorry we were DQ'd from this race, but daddy really wanted to see you win a trophy and daddy made a mistake by getting to involved with your car, and I am sorry that it was my involvement that ultimately pushed your car out of the race." You see by doing this the father teaches the son that winning at all cost is not how we do things in life. This then backs up all the ideas that BSA trys to promote. Honor.

[spocktwin]

Well, you know you had me thinking before that you were of different opinion now I just think you don't get it. Honor??? Why publish the BSA rules in the kit if they don't matter!! Is the Constitution of the United States to be followed when convenient by each state?
I made a different intepretation of the rule then they did and for that I am sorry My intent was not to make sure my son won a god forsaken trophy. My son was DQ'd in the last round. We were not even given the chance to correct the issue, just humiliated and sent away. The car was put in a baggy after the pack race and was untouched until we removed it at the inspection table.
My intent was to race the car as it was with no funny business. The car was put in a baggy after the pack race and was untouched until we removed it at the inspection table.
You don't know me and your almost tone of thinking that people always get DQ is because they want to cheat? Again do you understand honor.
You talk of Honor,,,,,do you really understand what that means. Re read Bubba's post and you see that his concern was for the boys. My son went as a rep from his Den last year to the districts and we did not place but had a great positive experience.
That is all I was looking for in this race. I would not have traveled to the races early in the morning with the intent of getting an illegal car into the race. I had faith in the system that the car would be inspected according to the rules, which I believe it was, in good faith. My sons faith in those leaders now reflects on how they dishonored the situation.

Your so called Honor was to humiliate an 8 year old kid in front of a packed hall??? Sir you know not honor or respect with are the foundations of Scouting. My respect for you and your opinion are now lost.


edited after I posted:
My son did come in third in the Districts last year but they only awarded for 1st and 2nd. But again we had fun and couldn't wait until this year. I responded with some anger in that post but I am trying to get over the fact that people (namely the above poster) that the race is irrelevant, I am upset with the strange way the rules were applied and the humiliation given to my son in a public forum. The Honorable way to handle this would have been to talk with us privately, or give us a chance to fix the error and the only person damaged in this would have been me for feeling dumb or at least ill informed about the rule they were dealing with. I want my son to come out of every experience richer for it. If you want to blame me for the loss of his "good experience" for it but I would have loved to show him that his father is an honorable man and would have done anything (if given the chance) to correct the error as it was not fair to him or (and I want to stress this) the other fine young men he was racing. To set an example for the young is much much richer then words!
Live Long and Prosper
Spock

[Downhill Gravity Racing]

Spocktwin, in my previous post nothing what I was saying was directed at you and your situation. It was my critique on BSA in general with reference to what Bubba had previously posted. I believe that within a forum as people post ideas, more ideas get developed based on what others say. You know as well as I do there are die hard fathers out there who will purchase ebay cars for their sons to race. Is this an honorable action? No correct?

The summation of my previous post was the pinewood derby has drastically taken a left turn, with a win at all cost mentality. I personally can not afford all the special tools, prepped wheels or any of the items available to scouts sold online now a days. I do not have electric saws, sanders, routers or lathes. In fact the past two years we used a metal hack saw to cut out my sons car. It was my son that penciled his design onto the BSA block of wood and then I cut it for him. More then likely he could have cut it himself, however I did not want to take the chance he might injure himself during the cutting.

I am sorry you are taking this as a personal attack upon yourself, however none of my posts have directly addressed you since my intial post that you responded to in agreement. The topic got built up since then, thus my replys have only been with in that box. In our race this year, 3 cars were DQ'd at districts at check in, 2 more were DQ'd during the race. 2 of those five cars turned out to be ebay purchased cars. The others were shown to have alterations outside the rules. Yes, I do feel bad when the boys have been looking forwards to race day for days or weeks, but I am fairly certain the boys could not afford the tweaks and tools that were used to build or purchase their car. So for the scout, I feel sad, but ultimately if you think about it rationally, the father put their son in the position to potentially be DQ'd. At some point in life we have to own up for the things we do. In the case of the above references I have made, it was not the childs fault, it was the parent who was at fault. That parent can step up and sit down with the child and explain why their car was DQ'd based on what he did, and teach the child to accept that responsibility. But to tell your son that it was "other peoples" fault their car got DQ'd is not an honorable action to teach your child. Wouldn't you agree?

[scooter]

I asked my 10 year old daughter last night (after reading and posting on this thread ) how she would feel if she had won the group race and was advanced to another race and passed inspection and after 5 runs her car was considered to have inapropriate wheels and could not race anymore?

Her reply was "they just now caught it, How come they did'nt catch it at the inspection?

That was her reply, So I asked again; How would you feel about it if you were infront of everybody and they accused you of cheating, "did they laugh at him?" was all she said.

So the father or co- builder was not at fault here , It was clearly a disrespect and inconsiderable action on the race cordinators in way the situation was handled and NO consideration was considered for the child.

BSA arena racing is about the child Not the adults.

Sounds as if there needs to be some action taking to make sure this issue does'nt rise again.

Spocktwin, If I were you I would take all appropriate actions to make sure another child does'nt get humiliated and would clearly state that yes the race is over and it's water under the bridge but some thing has to be done that this issue does'nt arise again.

[spocktwin]

;D Hey I am smiling now....venting does a body good ha ha. Yes I just want to correct the problem and not have it happen to my child or your child.
Gravity you are correct the improper thing to do at this point would be to tell my son it was someone else's fault. Dad made the mistake (My son, worked very hard on the car) and I truly accept that blame. I will not blame other people as we (my wife and I) believe the world is too full of people trying to blame their problems on the rest of the world. I want him to take responsibility for his own life and that is why I did not, and will not carry on conversations about it where it would make anyone look bad in this situation. I still want him to respect the people that give of their time to work with scouting. I still thank them for their dedication and I always will.
Scooter brought up a thing that my son did say though "Why did they wait until we were almost done" This is the one question I can not answer.
I am reminded of another Star Trek term IDIC....Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. We are all different and that makes us all special. Our differences can make us stronger.

Live Long and Prosper
Spock

[scooter]

I absolutely agree also that fault should not be falsely placed and a great thing to any child is to admit when you are wrong.

But as I think this whole thread started with the way things were handled by the people doing the race.

Yes they are most likely volunteers and should be greatly appreceiated for all their efferts and time donated for the event(s) .

But at the same time they should also think of the kids first hand and how any actions will effect the kids, Not the adults.

By the remarks of 2 kids if the car passes inspection it is race ready and legal.

So therefore it is the inspectors responsibility to make sure all are on the same playing feild so in this case they did'nt do it.

In a lot of ways most winners in somes eyes are potential cheaters.

So that being said inspection of the pine car after it has won
is only a cop-out for the inspectors to start with.

[Gravitycraftsman]

Spock twin:

For what ever it's worth I would follow Bubba's Advice and be mindful of your tone with with race organizers. Tone is often misread in letter or e-mail form...so I would be careful ..I would even have two other people read the letter first before I send it. Sometimes writing is a healthy exercise and you may find that you might discover another way to help your son with the hurt and disappointment. Good lessons for all here! All my best.

GC

[Derby Worx Pro Team]

Apr 19, 2008 23:36:45 GMT -6 Downhill Gravity Racing said:

I keep getting a message saying that I am banned from replying to topics? Is this instituted by forum moderation because of my personal beliefs?

I took a look at the and I don't believe that you were ever banned from posting or modifying your posts. A new version of software was recently installed and this could be giving some people problems.

[Downhill Gravity Racing]

Well that is great, thank you. I received a few forum messages about that as well with the suggestion of contacting Pro Boards who did the software upgrade. I will get back to you when they inform me of what took place.

Thanks.

[spocktwin]

Thanks for all the suggestions, I have made a point of not writing anything until I got my arms around the whole thing. The only writing I have done is here and believe me it has helped.

Update on the situation:
We arrived home from Grandma's last night to a couple of messages from the cubmaster and the District Rep. The Cubmaster started his work of investigating what happened. He takes his boys and his work with them very seriously. He is smart enough to know there are two sides to every story. He started with the other parents of the boys from the pack that were there and the problems did not end with my son.
After I walked out with my son another parent from our pack did not see us right away but went in and asked about the line on the bottom of the "district rule" sheet that stated all inspections are final and are the responsibility of the inspection team when you register. So by their rule (not the BSA rules in the box) they did not follow the rules.
The same parent watched as a father kept coming up to get the car from the table to give the car to the starter. Thinking that the father was the parent of one of the physically disabled young men he said he thought that was considerate that they let him do that. His reply was "yeah my boy hates to miss soccer practice!!!" The district rules clearly state that the boy must be in full uniform and present to race. He then found out that a webelos from our pack who's father got called away on a medical emergency (a doctor) just before the race. His mother who drove separately because their daughter was in an academic challenge asked if one of the other children or parent could present the car to the starter when they had to leave....... because the intention was for Mom to be there for her son at the start but Dad would be with him to the end.....guess what the answer was. That's right if he wasn't present he could not race.
To add insult to injury one of the race people grabs the microphone and tells the crowd if anyone has any issue with their car they know to be illegal please come forth now and we will help you resolve the situation. I have a problem that we are taking the boy scouts to the form of now guilty to proven innocent. Where was this solution when they believed my son's car had a problem. Because they were shooting from the hip instead sticking to their guns ie the rules.
The cubmaster has spoken to District officials on my behalf and they immediately went into the "we are not going to take awards from the boys" That in no way shape or form do I want that to happen, in my book not fair at all to those young men.
This was an error by the men not the boys so the standings and awards will stand as long as I am involved. What I am asking for (and have been from the start) is an apology to my son (and the other boys) on the way they handled it and an admission that they screwed up.
We have had some discussion in this thread about Honor, does anyone disagree that this would be the honorable way to end this sad story?
I will keep you all updated
Live Long and Prosper
Spock

[Go Bubba Go]

Apr 20, 2008 9:18:12 GMT -6 Downhill Gravity Racing said:

...There is no uniform set of rules that all BSA races follow. Regardless of when a car was found to be "cheatting", as a father who has his son do 98% of the work on his car, I would not be happy to know, the father of another son worked on his car night and day so that his son could win. Bubba, I have read some of your post here on this board and you seem to be a BSA purist, until this posting/thread topic.....

Note sure how quoting the rules directly from the official BSA kit would disqualify one from the title of "BSA purist"

I purposely avoided discussing the infraction in question because I do not know, and neither will the officials for certain (and for the sake of this discussion about the timing of inspections, it isn't really relevant) whether the issue that led to a violation was one of craftsmanship, poor "at home" measuring equipment, overzealous Dad, poorly worded rules, difference between criteria given in rules and criteria used in inspections, etc. etc.

I am aware that there are no uniform set of rules that all BSA races follow, in part because the "rules in the box" leave a lot of room for interpretation (although all BSA races that I have heard of do keep the "clear" rules i.e. height, width, length) and also in part because the Packs run themselves, they are not "dictated to" by BSA national.

IMO the "rules in the box" with regard to timing of inspections are quite clear and should be followed, not because I am a "BSA purist" as such (not sure that I am, have to think about one...), but because I think they are simply more appropriate to the age group and the type of race.

There will be boys that will show up for many reasons (ignorance, poor craftsmanship, intentional "cheating", etc.) with cars that are outside the legal boundaries. IMO they should be identifed and addressed before the racing starts, and then once they have passed inspection they have passed inspection. You can run your local race differently and conduct inspections at various stages up to and including a post race teardown if you wish, but I think it is a mistake to do so and I think it will cost you and the boys more than you will benefit from it.

Bubba

[scooter]

Glad it seems to be working out , Maybe some changes can be made to avoid this kind of situation again in the future.

In reference to the other parent referring to the last line "final inspection" There is a lesson to learn in that alone:

Always carry the rules in your pocket for quik reference.

In reference to the boy missing soccer PRACTICE ; Makes me wonder why the boy did'nt want to attend the race ,seems daddy hates to miss a good pinecar race.

[ohsofast]

Spocktwin,

I am very sorry to hear about this happening to you. It sounds like you were working together with your son to do your best and someone didn't appreciate your results and could do a little damage control for their own benifit. I have seen this a few times in our appearances at districts, cars pass tech, there is a under-rumbling scuttle about what is legal and what is not after tech and BANG a car performs well and it is time to play them cards. No this is not Nascar and a pre-race inspection is plenty, my gosh, there are only a hand full of things to check. If a car passed tech, it should be in, PEROID.

Any chance you could post some pic's of these wheels, it would take some serous sanding on the inside of the wheel to gain a performance gain.


Terry

[spocktwin]

Thanks ohsofast and I wil try to get the pictures so all can see. I am not versed in how to do that but can't imagine it is too hard.

update:
Thanks again to a great cubmaster, who was the inpector at the pack race and had no problem with my son's car, has furiously pursued what happened on Saturday. The cubmaster and I received and email about 3pm from the District Exec who agreed that things were not done the correct way for my son and others (see previous post) and that he or another District Rep would come to our next Pack meeting and publicly acknowledge that no wrong was done by my son and his removal was wrong and the District is sorry for what happened.
The District officials will note the problems and I have been invited to help set up the rules and procedures for next years situation and can be the race official if I so desire (which I do).
I will, as I get going on this, ask for help from the good people of this board to give me ideas on the best way to run a fair and honorable event for all. Even if my son does not get to the districts next year I want to do this for all the boys like my son to get a fair chance.

Thanks to all for your kind words and support it gave me the fortitude to keep going so this does not happen in the future.
Live Long and Prosper
Spock

[Sappington R]

Spock,
I've been following your story closely all weekend and have seen your point of view the whole way. It appears as though you will be getting the desired outcome- even more, actually, a PUBLIC apology-huge + an opportunity to shape the event for the future. I am very happy for you and your son + your district.

There are a lot of guys on this board that have tons of experience organizing and running scout derby's. If it were possible to standardize the rules for all packs in your district, that would help greatly. One issue that you really need address is how much wheel modification is allowed. If you want to allow hollowing the wheels (inner tread) and make them light weight you will need to be prepared for the aftermath- that is home made vs. professionally done. I personally have no problem with this rule- definitely makes for better & faster cars. I think you will find division amongst the organizers when this topic is approached.

Lastly, when a person makes a comment like "the son didn't do the work" or "the outcome of the race was more important to the father than the scout" those are all subjective statements and really have no bearing on the rules and the purpose of pinewood derby in scouting. It is intended to be an adult/child team experience. Regardless of the level of involvement, it is still a partnership. There is no way a first grader is going to be as involved as a 4th or 5th grader. There will always be varying degrees of child participation- to say that a scout did 99% of the work and competed well is great. On the other hand, the simple fact that 50 other scouts in a pack were able to show up on race day with a decent car is even better.

Congratulations for the positive outcome of a very ugly situation. You showed tremendous restraint and were able to think clearly. Lastly, that car you built with your son has a reputation now. I think that there are a lot of WIRL guys now that want to race it! Send that baby in and we'll have some more fun! ;D

[Gravitycraftsman]

Well Said Mr. Sappington! Excellent Wisdom!

[spocktwin]

Sappington, if you look back one of my first posts, (not like I have a ton), it was one of your threads on your son's victories. I was thrilled with the way you presented it and I really wanted that feeling for my boy. Thanks so much for the moral support from all of the people on this website. I even received a private message from someone I respect from reading their messages on threads and the moral support was priceless.
You are correct in that I got what I desired most, the ability to one: show my son that the system does have good people in it who will do the right thing if you give the respect you think you should get and secondly: Get the ability to make this thing better and I make a promise to all of you I am going to make it better for everyone by trying to put the fun back into this, not for just the winners but every boy who puts his car on the track.
After reading your message I had one of the proverbial smack myself in the head moments. I am going to propose to the District leaders that I will work with reps and people from this sport (namely you folks) on drafting a set of rules quickly. I will then submit to them and this forum for what they might see as good and bad. Get the thing hammered out and give to the packs by the end of the year. This way they could use them as guidelines (not a mandate) but they could build those cars for the pack race knowing if they get to the districts they are covered. I also will give them either and email of mine, or as one person suggested on the phone last night, maybe have one of the internet oriented people set up a small web page that the Packs could go to for information on what might come up as gray areas and get a decision before the fact.
I hope I am not going overboard but the opposite I think would produce what happened last Saturday. Oh one more thought has anyone ever produced a document on how the inspectors should inspect a car? Seems kind of simplistic but then again maybe not. I think a training session for the volunteers that want to help inspect in order that everyone looks at it the same way.
I hope you guys and gals won't grow tired of me as I take this on, but I tend to be a little obsessed with crossing the T's and dotting the i's on this. Wish me luck and look forward to conversing with all of you!
Live Long and Prosper
Spock

[spocktwin]

one more thing I really want to look at this proxy thing you spoke about. I have no idea how it works....believe me I will have lots of questions so I know the rules (smiling to myself right now) Is there someplace here on the site to read about it and maybe get my feet wet?
thanks
Spock

[scooter]

Spock , Check your PM

[Sappington R]

Spock well said (that is, for a Vulcan ;D) I sense that most of the regulars on this board are with you 100% - therefore, no worries, stay on this path. It's all good.

Doesn't your race have some sort of superior intellect??