Planning Your Event

This page walks you through everything that happens before race day — from choosing how the tournament runs to printing the last QR code. The system handles most of the complexity, but a few decisions are yours to make.

If you haven't yet seen the full lifecycle of a race, start with the How It Works overview. Planning is Stage 1 of six.

Pick Your Tournament Style

The first decision: how do you want racers grouped? The system supports several tournament styles, but for most packs the choice comes down to two.

If it's not just Cub Scouts building cars — and we strongly encourage that — choose Neighbors First. It races youth in their own brackets first, then siblings and guests, then adults, and finishes with a final merge round that ranks everyone together. Youth get the spotlight early, but everyone ends up with a fair overall ranking. With 24 racers, expect around 87 races — still well under 90 minutes on a two-lane track.

If it really is Cub Scouts only (no adult cars, no guests, no siblings), All Unified is the simplest choice. Everyone goes into one pool, the algorithm sorts them, done. Same 24 racers, about 55 races — easily under an hour.

Why invite adults and guests? Because more cars means more races means more fun. The system uses adult matchups to give youth extra racing opportunities — and there's nothing like the moment a Tiger Cub's car beats a Den Leader's. The crowd goes wild every time. We have a whole page of tips for adult racers — share it with your parents before the event.

You can change the tournament style later — even after check-in — but the earlier you decide, the better your supply estimates will be.

The Planning Checklist

Once you create your race in the system, a seven-step checklist guides you through setup. Complete each step before moving on — the last step is an acknowledgment gate that unlocks check-in day.

Step 1: Expected Walk-ins

How many additional participants do you expect beyond your registered Cub Scouts? Think parents building cars, siblings who want in, Boy Scouts visiting from the Troop, friends of families.

This number matters — it feeds into the trophy calculator and supply estimates in the next steps. But here's the key idea: it's better to over-prepare than under-prepare. If you know four adults are likely to bring cars but you don't know exactly who yet — enter 4. You don't need names at this point. The system will ask for names during check-in.

This is also about shared knowledge. A Pinewood Derby shouldn't depend on one person remembering everything. When these estimates live in the system, anyone on the organizing team can see them and plan accordingly — who's ordering trophies, who's printing materials, who's setting up the track.

Not all walk-ins need trophies. Adults usually don't. Visiting Boy Scouts from the Troop might not. The system accounts for this — in the next step, you'll choose which categories are prize-worthy and which are just racing for fun. But to make those decisions well, you need a realistic headcount first.

Step 2: Award Configuration

This is where you decide what gets awarded and to whom. There are three layers to configure.

Speed Awards

The system knows which speed categories are possible based on your tournament style and participant mix. You decide which ones are prize-worthy. Maybe you want trophies for Overall, for each Cub Scout rank, and for Youth combined — but not for the Guest category because there are only two of them. Toggle it off. Maybe your tournament style supports an overall ranking across all groups — enable it or skip it, your call.

This is also where you see the full picture: the interface shows every possible prize position and the current trophy count. As you toggle categories on and off, the count updates in real time. That's your shopping list for trophies.

Design Awards

The system comes with 8 defaults: Best in Show, Most Creative, Most Colorful, Funniest Theme, Best Paint Job, Most Realistic, Best Engineering, and Scout's Choice. You can enable, disable, rename, or add your own. These are assigned by the MC during the Judging stage — they're not calculated from race results.

Special Awards

4 defaults: Fastest-Looking Car, Most Team Spirit, Lightest Legal Car, Heaviest Legal Car. Same deal — fully configurable, assigned by the MC.

The full breakdown of how awards work, including the Smart Calculator logic and Top Competitor badges, is on the Prizes & Categories page.

Step 3: Smart Prize Calculator

Based on everything you've configured — participant count (including expected walk-ins from Step 1), enabled categories, and your tournament style — the calculator tells you exactly how many trophies to order.

It's not just arithmetic. The calculator applies prize-worthiness logic: categories with three or fewer members get adjusted trophy counts (no point awarding 1st, 2nd, and 3rd when there are only two racers). Redundant group awards — like a "Youth" trophy when all racers are youth — get flagged automatically.

The detailed explanation of how this works is on the Prizes & Categories page. Here's what matters for planning: the number you see is the number you buy.

Step 4: Supply Calculator

A few physical supplies that are easy to forget — the system tracks them for you.

Car name stickers — 2 per participant

Every car needs to be identifiable at a glance. One sticker goes on the waiting table — that's where the car sits between races. When your Race Supervisor calls the next matchup, they pick up the right car by matching the name. The second sticker goes on the bottom of the car itself — so the Supervisor at the finish line knows which car crossed which lane, and records the result correctly. After a heat, cars go back to their sticker on the table. No confusion, no mix-ups, even with 30 nearly identical wooden blocks.

Track lane markers — 4 pieces

The system refers to lanes by shape and color, not "left" and "right" — for a good reason. When you're standing at the start of the track facing the lanes, "left" is one thing. When you're at the finish facing the lanes, "left" is the opposite. Scouts running the race at both ends would constantly get confused.

Instead, each lane gets a marker: a green triangle and a red circle (or whatever shapes work for your setup). The system shows the same shapes on screen. The Supervisor at the start sees "place the car on the green-triangle lane." The Supervisor at the finish sees "green-triangle lane wins." No ambiguity. You'll need two markers per lane — one at each end of the track.

Step 5: Driver Licenses

Upload a template image and the system generates a printable PDF driver's license for every participant — personalized, front and back, ready to cut and hand out.

Tell the kids they'll receive an official driver's license to compete in the race. That sentence alone is worth the five minutes of setup.

Step 6: Print Materials

Five types of printed materials, each with its own QR code that links to the right place — dashboard for organizers, public page for families:

• Preparatory Instructions — setup guide for the event organizer. What to have ready, how the room should be arranged, timeline suggestions.
• Race Supervisor Sheet — the guide your Scout supervisors will use at the track. Written for youth: clear language, step-by-step, with a note at the bottom: "If you get stuck, ask an adult coordinator." See team assignments below.
• MC Sheet — the guide your adult MC will use for announcements, ceremony pacing, and award assignment. Written for adults, with the full ceremony flow.
• Participant Guide — a card for every racer: basic etiquette (wait for your name, don't touch other cars), how to check results on the public screen, what happens at awards.
• Feedback Survey — a post-race questionnaire for families. Anonymous, 18 questions. These are genuinely useful — they cover what excited the kids, whether the racing felt fair, how this compares to previous derbies, and what to change next year. If you only print one extra thing, make it the survey.

Each material has copy-count controls so you print exactly what you need.

Step 7: Ready to Go

A confirmation gate. Once you've reviewed everything — styles, awards, supplies, materials — check this off and the system unlocks the Preparing (Check-in) stage. You can still come back and adjust planning settings, but the race is now officially in motion.

Your Race Day Team

A Pinewood Derby needs two key roles — and one of them should be a Scout.

Race Supervisor — a Scout

The Race Supervisor runs the race from the dashboard: announces the next matchup, places cars on the track, records who won. We recommend two Scouts sharing this role — one at the start of the track (placing cars and releasing them) and one at the finish (calling the winner and recording the result on the device).

This is deliberate. The system is designed so that youth run the race, not adults. The Supervisor Guide that you print in Step 6 is written for Scouts — clear language, simple instructions, and a note at the bottom: "If you get stuck, ask an adult coordinator." It's a real leadership role with real responsibility, and survey feedback consistently shows it's one of the things Scouts value most about the event.

MC (Master of Ceremonies) — an adult

The MC is the entertainer. They narrate the action, build suspense before each reveal, and run the award ceremony at the end. During the Judging stage, the MC assigns design and special awards from their own dashboard view — they see car names, detailed stats, and rematch information that the public screen never shows.

The MC Guide printed in Step 6 is written for adults — it covers announcing technique, ceremony pacing, and award assignment.

This division — Scouts operate, adults entertain — is core to how the system works. It teaches responsibility, keeps youth engaged, and gives adults a role that plays to their strengths.

Before You Go

Once planning is done and your materials are printed, the next step is check-in day — the Preparing stage. That's where participants show up, get checked in, and have their car photos taken. Walk-ins join here too.

When you have at least two participants checked in, the system lets you start racing. But don't rush — make sure your Supervisor Scouts have their printed guides, your MC knows their role, and the QR code for the public spectator page is visible somewhere in the room. Parents will want to scan it the moment cars start moving.