WE WON!!!

I must digress from the usual quilting for a moment to congratulate my dear, sweet husband who has spent months (since Nov!) cutting, carving, sanding, polishing, painting, etc. his toy (oh, did I say 'tweaking, too?") his pinewood derby car, so he could win the district race in CT (put on by the Toyota dealers in the NY district). AND HE DID!!! There were 30 other derby cars of various styles and they ran three heats on a three lane track, so your car ran in each of the lanes, then took the average time as your speed/time. (See the post further below this one, for a nice picture of the two cars....) As you can see, Lee came in first!! He also got BEST IN SHOW! (for this, the prize was a diecast Nascar Camry Race car) The 1st prize winner of this district (#4), gets to go to NJ to race in the Regionals, (is there a National??) and also won a digital camcorder. The funny thing is, ours wasn't even the fastest car in the room. The fastest one was the second car Lee made ("The Penny Racer") that was in his bag!! Since he could only race one of the cars, and the Lynch car was his original car (and it was decorated nicely), he chose that one to race. We did a test race on a wood track at home (yes, he brought home this honkin' big 8' board) and built a track to test these two cars on and the Penny racer was faster. (He even had them do a test run of his 'winner' and the Penny Racer after the race ended, and the Penny Racer "FLEW off the track" into the wall. It came in at 3.01 seconds! We think it got injured because the second run only had it at 3.04 (although they did say each lane ran different, which was why they took the average of the three runs. At home, we 'tweaked' the Lynch car to take over the other car, but we knew when push came to shove, the Penny Racer could out race the Lynch. No matter, we won!!!!Top to bottom, 1st (us!), 2nd, and 3rd!

One more day.....and Derby cars race.

Hopefully, this afternoon, I will be able to play in the sewing room(!) This is an important thing. It's my resting area, my thinking space, my unwinding place, my peaceful room. Unless it's a mess and I can't find the things I need to work on the next project (hey, what did you want me to do, be philosophical??) All I know is that after a week and a day of going to 3 funerals/wakes, I need my quilting to center me. And it works! I also, can't wait until Wed when my husband will be racing his first pinewood derby car for his company, Lynch Toyota. (They started out as a block of wood with a hollow space underneath......yeah, ...I know!) This one is his favorite since he had the service manager willing to have the lettering put on it for him.... the "company car'. The Toyota company is sponsoring this race for all their technicians across the country (I think) and he is sooo getting into it. We meet at a conference room in a local hotel for appetizers, dinner and to race the 'local' technicians. then (when) he wins to goes to NYC for the regionals (they are already planning his hotel/dinner reservations--I get to go too!), then on to the 'nationals. Too exciting if we win!! And as I told him, 'If we lose, we're losing with STYLE!" This one is the 'Penny Racer'. From what he tells me, longer wheelbase, better power, although we tested it yesterday (my goodness, grown men certainly get serious about their toys, don't they?...) and on a 'low angle' the Penny Racer whipped the other Lynch car. But angle that board up to 3' and they are soooo close to call! I'll let you'll know how we make out.