Pinewood Derby Race

I work in the Power Asset group at Direct Energy which oversees our 3 gas fired generation plants in Texas.  We had a big meeting yesterday where the management and some of the staff from the power plants came to Houston for a big hoorah.  They came from Bastrop (outside Austin), Frontera (down in the valley in McAllen, on the Mexico border), and yes, Paris, TX.  The meetings all day were horribly boring but later that afternoon we had a pinewood derby race!  They brought in the real McCoy boy scout derby administrators with the track, computer system, etc.  It was all way more high tech than I imagined.  Plus there was an open bar where I enjoyed a cold, frosty O'douls.

I previously sat next to a guy at work that loves to widdle as a hobby (even does civil war reenactment stuff and sets up widdling stations).  I outsourced the carving of my car to him.  I thought he did a pretty good job.  I then blinged it out with rhinestones and glitter and had my dad add lead to the bottom to beef up the weight.  I was feeling pretty proud of the car.  The quality of pics on my camera phone isn't great, but here is what it looked like:

Rhinestone windows, flame on hood, and glitter smoke

Well I was feeling pretty good about my car until I saw the competition. I knew that the power plant engineers would take this very seriously, but wow, it was VERY impressive.  I guess this competition was right up their alley (think nerdy engineer with a bit or red neck) plus it doesn't hurt that 1st place won a 42" TV, 2nd place won an Ipad, and there were some gas cards and Mario Cart Wii games as prizes too.  These are most of the cars (a few were not on the table):

Well, turns out I got 4th from last place -- oh well, it was fun!

Here I am with my car: