Everything that starts simple will inevitably grow into a hairball if I have anything to do with it.
When I heard about Threadless.com’s ThreadLe Manss competition I decided to give it a shot. How hard could it be? I’ve painted, I’ve sanded wood, I’ve used glue… KIDS do this crap every day.
At least I think they do. For all I know parents make pinewood derby cars and the kids merely take credit for them, not unlike the kids of co-workers who look doe-eyed up at their elementary school teachers and tell them YES, they were the ones that sold $483 worth of crappy soap and waxy candy bars to friends and neighbors in the school’s Spring Fundraiser. Want to know why Wally two cubes down is kicking corporate ass without breaking a sweat while overworked and underpaid You are on five kinds of high blood pressure meds and keep a personal defibrillator in your car? I bet Wally also kicked cub scout pinewood derby and elementary school fundraiser ass without breaking a sweat, and you’ve merely taken the place of his now empty husk of a father. Ask how Wally’s father is doing. Go ahead, ask. Because in a few years, if you don’t get the hell out of that job of yours you’ll be just like pops.
Steer clear of Wally. The alternative is pain and sorrow.
Oh yeah, ThreadLe Manss. Pinewood derby car kits range anywhere from around $3 including the wheels to–no kidding–well over $100. The latter are just about ready to roll out of the box but I can’t imagine anyone who is sane purchasing that kind of thing. The $3 kits in hindsight would have been just fine, but I have to complicate things so I went for a slightly better, more aerodynamic kit thinking it would increase my chances of winning.
The kit I chose was the “Stealth” kit from Maximum Velocity. I believe it was somewhere between $15-$20 NOT including the axles and wheels which ran me something like another $17. A lot of manual labor was taken care of for me right out of the gate, but damn, $37?
The kit (as you can see from the finished car) is flat so there is little air drag, like that really matters in something this tiny. The shape of the car kit does not even slightly resemble a car (and I’m not one to do things normally anyway) so I floated around in a fog for a while trying to think of how to decorate it. The body parts disposal space module just kinda popped into my head one day and got stuck. I had envisioned something much more cartoony and silly than what I ended up with, but I’ve never been a precise painter, nor have I ever painted anything small, so…
As I painted the thing the cartoony images in my head left and dirtier, darker images emerged, probably a sign that I was getting fed up with the idea of painting a car for a race that I probably wouldn’t win in a town that I don’t live in, and besides, $37?? Yeah, I got that stuck in my head as well. Combine that with other crap that came down in my life (car issues, basement carpet/water issues AGAIN, lots of money going out and not much extra coming in, Democratic frigtards everywhere I turned, etc.) and you may understand why the car project rapidly lost steam. I swear, most of the painting on that thing occurred over only a few days, and each time it was fast.
This past weekend my goal wasn’t to finish a really cool car, it was to finish PERIOD and send it in no matter how lame it turned out. At least once I considered stopping painting, gluing all the parts together, slapping on the wheels and just mailing the thing out as-is. Life is short, y’know? It’s just a pinewood derby car, after all. Still, I stuck with it and sort of finished it.
The blood? It’s not real. I thought the thing looked too gray when I decided to stop painting it so I gook some Alizarin Red and globbed it around the hatch area and around the cracks in the fuselage. More blood is underneath but I didn’t take pictures of the bottom so you’ll just have to trust me. The car really does look better in person, but it still looks kind of disgusting at the same time. I don’t care, it’s DONE.
I mailed it out today. All cars are due on Friday, May 2nd. This means high dollar express postage. Take that $37 and tack on about another $20 and you’ll have an idea of how big my headache is right now. Still, it’s an experience, not unlike writing a book: I’m glad I did it but I may never do it again. Or, I’ll try it again but I’ll keep things really simple. Dunno. Duncare.
There you have it. If I win anything–HA!–I’ll be sure to let y’all know.
