![]() Other packs in the Los Angeles area held their own races that year.īy 1954, word got to the national director of Cub Scouting Service, O. The first Pinewood Derby race was held May 15, 1953, in Manhattan Beach’s Scout House. ( Today’s cars are made from a single block of wood, and each axle, or nail, goes directly into the body of the car.) Why three blocks of wood? One was for the car’s body, and the other two formed the axles. Light bulbs identified the winner of each race.Įvery Cub Scout got a brown paper bag containing four plastic wheels, four nails and three blocks of wood - all supplied by North American Aviation’s Management Club. Murphy and the other parents in Pack 280C built a 32-foot, two-lane track. Impressively, the track had a battery-run finish line made from doorbells. ![]() ![]() “I also wanted to devise a wholesome, constructive activity that would foster a closer father-son relationship and promote craftsmanship and good sportsmanship through competition,” he later told Scouting magazine. Why not bring that same joy to his Cub Scout pack? The pack would hold a miniature soap box derby using hoagie-size cars the Cub Scouts could build with their parents.ĭon Murphy remembered how much fun he had making model cars as a child in La Porte, Ind. The year was 1953, and a 10-year-old Cub Scout named Donn Murphy of Manhattan Beach, Calif., wanted to compete in the soap box derby run by the Management Club at North American Aviation, where his dad worked.īut this race involving kid-size, gravity-powered cars was just for those ages 12 and up.ĭonn’s dad, Don, had the perfect idea to cheer up his son. It’s still about designing a 5-ounces-or-less car that goes fast, looks cool or both.īut most of all, it’s still about a parent and child working together to build lasting memories. The Pinewood Derby is still about Cub Scouts and their parents turning four plastic wheels, four nails and some wood into a custom race car. Decades before precision starting gates, glow-in-the-dark cars and electronic finish lines that measure time to the thousandth of a second, there was a two-lane wooden track in California.Ī lot has changed since Cubmaster Don Murphy dreamed up the idea for the Pinewood Derby in 1953.
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