After obsessing over them for four days, I have finally finished my two cars for Threadless’ big Pinewood Derby race next weekend. I made one car to follow the rules, and I made another one just to create excitement and mayhem. I was able to stop by the Chicago office to drop off my cars since my wife and I are on our way to WI for Mother’s Day.

“One Track Mind” – the paint is actually a really nice gold metallic flake, it just doesn’t show up very well in these photos.


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This second car is called “Sour Grapes”. It has the mechanism from two mousetraps mounted on top, with drywall screws attached to the killing arms. There is a string from one wheel to the trigger, so that when the car rolls it sets off the traps, and the drywall screws destroy the cars in the adjacent lanes so that no one can win. I made it because I figured it would be funny, and the threadless people would have a good time with it while running the race.  I hope that threadless has a couple of unfinished car kits that they can run with my killer car so that there is no damage done to the really nice entries from other people.

The big silver hinges on the side of the car are just to add weight. In the first version of this car, the force of the traps firing would lift the whole car off the track, and not do any damage to the neighboring cars. I had to weigh it down just to keep it on the ground.