Built for speed

Cub Scouts craft their own racers for Jamesburg’s first Cubmobile race.

By: Leon Tovey
   JAMESBURG — Capitalizing on the previously unsuspected speed advantage of baby carriage wheels and WD-40, 7-year-old Cub Scout Matt Van de Sande hurtled down Hillside Avenue to victory for Wolf Den 5 in the borough’s first Cub Scout Cubmobile race Saturday.
   "It was the wheels," young Matt said Tuesday. "They were just really, really fast."
   For the race, each of the six dens in Cub Scout Pack 54 built its own car, a meaner, stripped-down version of the traditional soapbox-derby racer steered by foot pedals, Bear Den 7 leader Penny Radziewicz said Monday.
   The cars started out on a 3-foot high ramp located at the crest of Hillside Avenue above John F. Kennedy Elementary School and raced to the finish line at the bottom of the hill.
   The race consisted of five heats over a two-and-a-half-hour period and the top three finishers were smaller, younger scouts: Wolf Den 5’s Matt, 7; Tiger Den 1’s Xander Yoncak, 6; and Bear Den 7’s Evandeer White-Fitch, 8. The older, bulkier, 10-year-old Webelos Dens were completely shut out.
   And while the triumph of smaller, lighter Scouts in a race powered entirely by gravity might seem counterintuitive — even in conflict with the Newton’s Second Law of Motion (the one dealing with the relationship between mass, acceleration and applied force) — it was certainly sweet for the winners.
   "It was great," Matt said of his den’s victory over the older Scouts. "They were dancing in the little kids’ faces earlier, but then, when we won, we really laughed at them."
   And as it turns out, the key to victory for the younger Scouts was not entirely opposed to the laws of physics; as Newton’s First Law of Motion points out, bodies in motion tending to remain in motion unless an external force is applied to them. The younger Cubs were just better able to use this fact to their advantage.
   "It really was a matter of keeping a straight line," Ms. Radziewicz said. "Some kids put their feet down or bumped each other or the curb and that was it."
   For Wolf Den 5, the reduction of resistance provided by spoked baby carriage wheels (discovered in a storage room at the Van de Sandes’ house) and a good coating of WD-40 provided the final edge, Ms. Radziewicz said.
   "If you kept it straight, that car — you couldn’t beat it," she said.
   It was one of many lessons the Scouts — and their parents — took from the race, which Cubmaster Denise Halpin said the pack plans to make a yearly event.
   "It was so much fun," she said. "The police were really helpful, closing off the road for us, and the neighbors brought out their lawn chairs to watch.
   "After it was over, the adults — mostly the dads — had to try it out, too," she added. "And they were crazier than the kids; we had one dad spin out and tear his coat and one hit a curb and wrecked the car. At the end of the day, the adults were already making plans to make it bigger and better next year."