Archive: Around Town

It may not have been NASCAR, but the track in Lansing was packed Saturday -- Pack 48, to be exact.  Of course the Lansing Elementary School Cafeteria was the scene of Pack 48's annual Pinewood Derby.  The race features cars made from blocks of pine by cub scouts racing on the Lansing pack's special track.  The excitement rivaled that at any NASCAR race.

The Lansing pack also hosted Pack 55 from Ithaca and the Lansing 4H group at the end of January for the second year in a row.


Each car races five times, once on each lane, with the winner scoring the best average of the five.  That insures that if a particular lane gives an advantage to a car that all the cars will have an equal playing field.  Sensors at the finish line tell a computer when each car finishes, providing accurate times, which are projected from the computer onto the wall.  If a car jumps off the track it gets a redo.  Scouts are given five minutes to fix cars that need repairs during the race.  Times are sometimes within a thousandth of a second.

The top three cars raced in the pack championship, and some of those cars became eligible for the second annual Taughanock District Derby on February 20 at the Shops at Ithaca Mall.


Refreshments were sold by the pack in partnership with Lansing United Methodist Church's Kids in Action Now (KAN ) group.  The latter was raising money for 'Nothing But Nets,' an initiative to raise money to buy nets impregnated with an insecticide that kills mosquitoes, helping prevent malaria for kids in other countries.



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