The Stastny's go to the races

Derby time!!! Who doesn't love that? The special time of year when we pass out boxes of wood to the young cub scouts in our ward and tell them to go home and carve out that super fast, designer car all on their own. Yeah right. If you haven't experienced Derby time, then you may not realize that it has nothing to do with the kids. Its all about the dads. I resisted the first few years, insisting that Matt let the boys do as much of it on their own as they could. So my kids made great cars, resembling door stops, painted them all on their own, and came in near last in every heat. And after seeing the cars last year that were so obviously made by dads, I took on a new attitude. This year, I said "to heck with that, we're making a winning car". And so I set about getting Matt to look up designs with the boys on the Internet, and arranging shop time in my parents basement, and my mom bought cool colored wheels. The result? Gabe's car broke before he even raced it. Matt was pounding in the axle, and the wood that held it in broke off. So back to the pit he went, and drilled in two more holes for the axles in a new spot. It was weakened, but it would work. (cross our fingers) Heat one...Gabe won. Second race...Gabe won. Third race...one of the wheels fell off down the track. Back to the pit. Nothing they could do, so Gabe went back to the track and raced with only three wheels...he won! But the next two races his car was increasingly more wobbly, so he came in second.

Chandler go the award for "most intimidating" for his car SHADOW! Chandler had the fastest time over all, but in the final stretch, after making it to the semifinals, he came over to us with his car, and Morgan ran up to hug him and the car got dropped and....yup, it broke. He raced it anyway though, turning it backwards to take the pressure off the axles and....he came in second in his age group also.

Morgan entered her own car to race with siblings, and got he award for the "friendliest car".