2009 Awana Grand Prix and Historical Kennedy Racing Team Stats
Below are the 2009 Pinewood Derby pictures of this years car that were unveiled at the March 8th, 2009, Awana Grand Prix at Living Word Baptist Church, VA. Click each image or picture for a larger view. When designing the cars, my son Dawson has a Kawasaki 110cc dirt bike, so he really wanted a Kawasaki themed car. Both of my daughters are 125% girl, so they insisted on pink and princesses for their theme. Reganne has a flash of Dora still, that is why backpack is on the side of her car. I went with a Suzuki theme because my son did the Kawasaki thing…and I thought yellow would look nice. In previous years, I designed each car with different shapes. However, this year I used one design shape for all the cars as it just simply looks the toughest. I did different designs for each last year, but I love the look of this car body style.
Click here to see last years cars and results
Results, the 4 cars above ran 29 individual heats, with 3 cars to a heat. 23 first place runs, 5 second place runs and 1 third place run in one of the finals. Overall 1st place win percentage 80% for Kennedy Racing…not bad. The kids each received a trophy and had lots of fun.
In the past three years I have run a total of 8 cars and we have 6 trophies and a three year win percentage of 84.3%. Out of the 51 total heats in those three years we have finished first 43 times, with a total of 3 first place trophies, 2 second and 1 third.
Click here for last years pictures and results
Ordinary and Pure
According to Tim LaHaye, co-author of the Left Behind series, one of the prerequisite to finding God’s will in your life is to “possess your body in sanctification and honor”. What does that mean to you and me? An example he used in his book “Finding the will of God…in a crazy mixed up world”, was that of crystal glasses versus a plastic cup. There was a gathering at their house one Sunday evening and their guest that night had used every available drinking glass in the house, even the fancy crystal glasses that were given to them as a gift from their church family. The next Monday morning Tim went to the kitchen sink to get a drink of water. No clean glasses existed; even the nice crystal was dirty. So he proceeded to reach past the nice crystal in all of its beauty to a small plastic kid’s cup in the back of the cabinet. Why? Because it was clean.
God will often times bypass many talented Christians, in the worlds view, for an ordinary individual because they are clean. God wants you to be a clean vessel. You can’t change your looks, intelligence quotient or talents, but you can change your sanctification (to make holy; purify). What a beautiful picture to think God can use me, no matter what my short comings are, as long as I am a clean vessel. Now, I spend less time trying to increase my talents in the worlds view and spend more time praying and trying to purify myself…SO THAT… God can use me as an ordinary “CLEAN” vessel. I said it in a previous posting…whether you are ordinary or extraordinary, God does not need your time, talent or treasure, but guess what? He WANTS you. So if He wants you…purify yourself as a clean vessel ready for use at any moment. By the time the God given opportunity presents itself…it is to late to prepare, you have to be a clean vessel ready to go at any moment.
Science versus Religion (Relationship)
I was recently meeting with a business man that I was looking to do business with. During that conversation he mentioned that he always starts a business with religion, but runs it with science. Basically, he was saying “I start a business based on what I believe is going to happen, but once I start gathering data after start up, I continue to run it based on what the scientific data is telling me.” I certainly could relate to that statement because I am under the firm belief that “if we cannot measure it, we should not be doing it”. I am very analytical and data driven, I will make adjustments and make educated decisions based on what the numbers tell me to do.
