The Hinckley Family: And the Winner is...

Yesterday was Derby Day for Adventure Princesses, something Greg has been looking forward to since the day they signed up, encouraging Trinity to do the same. Greg was in Indian Guides and Scouts for years, so he and his dad had quite a bit of practice building winning cars for this highly competitive sport. Greg was taking this first Princess competition quite seriously and Trinity was feeding off that. We spent last Sunday afternoon at Greg's Dad's house designing, cutting, sanding and priming the car to prepare for completion during the week. I spent a good part of Wednesday and Thursday painting the car just how Trinity requested, half pink and half purple with diamonds. I felt bad not letting Trinity doing it, but I have a little bit of a hard time letting her loose with a can of spray paint. Thursday we went back to Sachse for setting the axles and putting on the finishing touches. Not long after arriving we discovered a bit of a problem, with all the parts on the car and the pre-drilled holes filled with pellets we were only up to about two and a half ounces and the cars were allowed to be five, this was the beginning of several hours of work for Greg and Hal! They figured out a way to implant weights in the sides of the car, still fill the holes with pellets and have it come in at just five ounces, filled all the holes with wood putty to still have a smooth finish and prepared to be repainted. By the time I got the car repainted and a good, thick coat of clear coat on it you couldn't even tell there were any weights in it! Woohoo!

When we showed up at the race with all the other first year competitors Greg was getting pretty excited about their chances. Several cars were NOT aerodynamic at all, but looked pretty cool. Some of the cars had enough weights to max out, but they were simply glued or screwed on, interfering with their aerodynamics. Then some of the cars were just cars the girls and their dads had fun designing together.

Now it was time for weigh-in. Greg was really nervous! He put the car on the scale and it rolled right off- it was ready to race! Once he got it to stay the number said 5.00 ounces...now that's good work! It's time to check it in and hand it over.

So finally race time is here! This is a highly technical race these days. Each car races four times and the track times their speed in each race. The car with the highest average speed is the winner. Of course at the Y everyone is a winner, so there are several other categories for winning and ever competitor receives a trophy.

Trinity's car won each of her four races, but we weren't sure how she was stacking up against some of the other cars that seemed to be doing the same. The girls were having a great time cheering on each others cars and watching for their own. When it came time to hand out the trophies we started to get a little nervous because we knew Trinity's chances were good. So they're down to the last three awards, 3rd, 2nd and 1st fastest time. I think Greg was starting to sweat a little bit! Then the announcer says, "And the winner of this year's first year Adventure Princess Derby Day race, with a time of 3.1????? seconds is...car #16...Trinity Hinckley!!!" WOO-HOO WE WON! Greg and Trinity were so proud! Trinity's friends and their parents were wonderful supporters and were very proud too! Trinity was a very humble winner, congratulating all of her friends as well and giving each one a unique compliment on their car. What a great time! Here are some pictures of our experience.

Trinity before we left for the race

Greg and Trinity leaving for the race

Cars lined up as their entered, you can see Trinity's is #16

Close up of Trinity's car with it's #16 sticker

Charlotte's Dad, Kelly having to drill holes in the bottom; it weighed in at 5.04 ozs You should have seen it though, it looked like a model car! Three weeks worth of work and 20+ coats of paint!