JULY 15, 2006

The Boys Scouts meet Ferrari (Part II)

A year ago the Boy Scouts of America in Paris took on a number of Formula 1 teams in a Pinewood Derby competition at Magny-Cours. Ferrari arrived with beautifully engineered cars, designed with CAD-CAM and only just managed to beat the best Boy Scout cars which featured coins for weight and other such advanced features.

The competition was repeated this year with more teams getting involved, including a pretty challenger from MF1 Racing and a much-improved Toyota entry and two McLarens: one a simple block of wheels and the other being suitably sculpted (the block of wood was quicker).

There was also a beautiful entry from Pink Floyd's Nick Mason who had sculpted a Maserati from his wooden block.

But once again the Boy Scouts proved hard to beat and it was only a few centimetres that Ferrari Number 5 won the day from Boy Scout 2 (built by William Saward - son of Grandprix.com's Joe Saward and Amy Saward, the press officer of the French GP - and Boy Scout 1 (built by Christopher Kulmayer, the scout champion of Paris and the boy whose car ran Ferrari closest last year). In recognition of his achievements in the last two years Kulmayer was given the Ferrari spare car after the event was over, while Ferrari also swapped another car to get their hands on Mason's Maserati.