Celebrity Pinewood Derby to Benefit Cub Scouts

The Pinewood Derby. It’s the Cub Scout event that takes a lot of us back to when we were kids. Many of you know the routine: start with a block of wood, four plastic wheels and two nails. Add a winter’s worth of planning, carving, painting, weighing and tweaking and hopefully you end up with a derby car that’s cooler and faster than all the other cars in your pack.

Like a lot of events, the pandemic has changed the way the 2020 Pinewood Derbies in our area will be run. Different dates and locations but also, limits on the number of people who can attend and execute the race. For the kids, it means watching their cars on a live stream rather than in person. It’s cool that the race is still on, but for the kids it’s gotta be less than what they’d been hoping for.

JR Girkis is a local Scoutmaster who’s involved in the races. He asked if either Dwyer or I still had our old Pinewood Derby cars. Maybe the kids would get a kick out of going head to head with a couple radio guys. Unfortunately, our cars are long gone.

Instead, we came up with a celebrity Pinewood Derby. And on Friday May 22, we’re gonna stream it live from the Rock n Roll Mansion. All the celebrity derby cars will go to the Cub Scouts and they can race, sell or keep ‘em.

So far, here’s a list of celebrities entering cars:

• Pat Miletich (MMA Champion and commentator)
• Seth Rollins (WWE World Heavyweight Champ)
• Michael Nunn (Boxing Champion)
• Carson King (Iowa Legend)
• Pat Angerer (Iowa Hawkeyes and Indianapolis Colts)
• Julian Vandeveldie (Iowa Hawkeyes and Philadelphia Eagles)
• Jake Gervase (Iowa Hawkeyes and Los Angeles Rams)
• "The Cornbelt Cowboy" Steve Manders (SCW Pro)
• Alex Tanney (Monmouth Fighting Scots and New York Giants)\
• Tim Dwight (Iowa Hawkeyes and Atlanta Falcons)
• Tavian Banks (Iowa Hawkeyes and Jacksonville Jaguars)
• Acie Earl (Iowa Hawkeyes and Boston Celtics)

Check out this video made by Pres Maxson who thinks Pat Angerer will totally defeat the Monday Night Messiah.

Already the trash talking is starting between racers. There's a feud between Pat Angerer and Julian Vandevelde.

We've made the news already, with the Catholic Messenger.

My car's coming along pretty awesome so far, I think it'll be the fastest one in the bracket. Look at that body shape.

The RULES:

• Maximum of 7” long
• Maximum 2-3/4” wide
• Minimum 1-3/4” to the inside of the wheels.
• Maximum 3” high
• Minimum 3/8” ground clearance/Max 1” clearance.

Did you win your Pinewood Derby? Here's what we've compiled of the Quad Cities Pinewood Derby Hall of Fame.

Tim Dwight gave us a little sneak peek at his car. It looks like it's going to be fast.