Pinewood derby

Last Thursday my neighborhood had a pinewood derby. There were thirty- five cars entered. The only rules were it had to fit on a traditional pinewood derby track and it could only be propelled by its own gravity of the car. I did not have time to make another car so I used one I made when I was eight and it only took seventh place. When I came home from school I just added some weight onto the back of the car. There were also contests at the derby for different things, like best in show, most creative, and most time spent on making the car. The cars were on a table and people voted for the car they liked.
The group that put on the derby had people bring a pot of their homemade chili to eat and to share with everyone. We took potato soup because no one in my family likes chili. They also had a really cool cake with matchbox cars on it and cupcakes with little plastic cars that all the kids could keep.
When it was race time, there were thirty-five cars that were raced off one against one in a single elimination format. The first car that raced mine was made out of pine branches (Get it "pinewood" derby). My car beat it, I knew it would. My car countiually beat other cars, even though I had thought it would be eliminated in the second or third round.
One of the bad things that happened was that they let the kids sit by the track to watch. They had to keep starting the races over because some of the kids would touch the cars as they came down the track. This totally messed up the race and they would have to redo it. Finally they made the kids slide back a couple of feet so they could not interfere with the races. When my car was in the semi-finals against a car that was a little bit heavier than mine, I thought my car was going to be eliminated. When the stop post went down and the cars started to roll, my car was behind. Then when the slope leveled out my car shot forward and eliminated the other car. In the finals, the car I was going to face was a lot heavier than mine. The person who made it had hollowed out the inside and welded four of the weights you screw on and he put it inside his car. I knew this would be a tough race. When the race started I thought it would be like the last one and my car would shoot forward and win, but it did not happen. They did a second race to make sure but my car lost again and took second.
Even though I did not get first place I am glad it took second because that was an improvement from when I was eight. They gave out all of the other awards that were judged at the end. The car that looked like it took the most time to make had 17 coats of paint and lacquer on it. The dad that won said he spent 35 hours on it. The one for the most creative car was built out of legos to look like a giant airplane, something like you would see in a Star Wars movie. There was also a certificate for every one who particpated, so I just went home and wrote second place on mine because there was not a specific certificate for second place. I can't wait for next year I might actually build a new car and actually win!