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spideeysense · 7 years

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Bathroom Feelings

Peter x Reader

A/N: Man I had fucking good time writing this! I know the title isn’t really enticing but i tried :P. Im sorry im absolute shit at titles. BYOB means “Bring your own booze” I linked the song I was listening to in the fic. Hope you all enjoy!! <3 -Bean. EDIT: So for some reason when i put this on tumblr the format got messed up. I went back and italicized anything that should be, however I might’ve missed one or two! Who do you want to see me write for next? Request!

Warnings: Swearing, Angst, Lots of crying from both Peter and Y/N. Underage drinking. If you squint really hard theres some light smut, its more like making out.

Summary: Peter and the Reader have been best friends since high-school, and Y/N had hoped for it to become something more, and it almost did. But junior year Peter changed, and they have drifted apart ever since. It’s halfway through senior year, and Peter and Reader run into each other at party..in the bathroom?

It all started junior year. Peter became more extroverted, he put effort into making more friends, and became more muscular, more attractive. Ned, M.J and Y/N knew he was drifting away when he blew them off to hang out with the more popular kids. At first it was just every other week, then it became every Friday, and soon enough Peter just stopped hanging out with them at all. Y/N knew he was gone when he stopped eating lunch with them, which had been the most consistent contact they had with him until he stopped. It was harsh, so so harsh, it was the slowest kind of burn. Peter dropping out of Y/N’s life without an actual reason hurt like hell. She thought it was because of her, maybe she was too clingy, too needy. Y/N, MJ, and Ned, made a pact to never abandon each other. Sure they had other friends, but they always hung out together, and were basically inseparable.

Tonight, Y/N had decided to go to a party, held by someone named Josh. Ned and MJ were both unavailable, so she decided to go alone and meet up with a few of her other friends there. She pulled her silver 2009 Subaru forester up the crowded driveway of the large, suburban house. The BYOB party was being held outside of the city, in some random suburb she couldn’t quite remember the name of, something like Summerwood. She pulled the keys out of the ignition and let out a long breath. This wasn’t her first rodeo, but it was weird not going with Ned or MJ. Y/N reached behind the drivers seat, and pulled out two six packs of beer, which she had gotten from her fridge. Y/N stepped out of the car, one pack of beer in each hand. She approached the large grey house, she nawed on her bottom lip nervously as she got closer to the door. She reached the open door, and was about to enter but she was stopped by an outstretched arm.

“Booze control, I need to check your hands.” A guy said, Y/N recognized him as Jackson, another senior in her Materials Science class. She lifted both her hands, showing Jackson the packs of beer. “Alright, go put it on the counter.” He said nonchalantly, pointing towards the kitchen. Y/N nodded and entered the house. The music was deafeningly loud, it made her heart jump in her stomach. She approached the kitchen and placed the two six-packs on the marble counter. She grabbed a red solo cup, a symbol of american high school parties and poured beer into it. The amber liquid sloshed around as she moved into the living room, the music came from all around her, and students across grades were huddled together. She spotted Flash doing a keg stand, with the help of Peter who was holding his feet up. Around him people were counting, 21, 22, 23, 24. Y/N stared at Peter, who locked eyes with her, his smile faltered a bit, Y/N’s breath caught in her throat and she turned and left the room quickly. Peter who had despised Flash so much, was now supporting him. Obviously not in the way one would think, but it still hurt. Seeing Peter and Flash brought back a force of memories from the back of her brain.

“Hey Peter!” Y/N greeted her friend excitedly, her heart was thumping in her chest. She hoped he couldn’t hear her excitement. “Hey Y/N,” Peter said, his voice wasn’t as enthusiastic as hers, but she brushed it off. Peter shuffled through his locked, looking for his binder. “What’s up?” He mumbled. “I was thinking,” Y/N started, toying with the strings of her hoodie, “I got the new Battlefront, and my mom got Ben and Jerry’s, the one with the fudge batter in the middle, and I was thinking maybe you’d like to come over and hang out?”

Peter hesitated for a bit before speaking, his eyes never leaving his locker. “When would that be?” He asked a bit harshly for Y/N’s liking. “Uhm- Friday, after school” She said quietly, stuffing her hands in her pocket. Peter turned and looked at her, his hand went to the back of his neck and he rubbed it nervously. “Listen Y/N, I’m like super busy this weekend, and I’m not really into that anymore.” He confessed, his eyes avoiding hers. Y/N’s heart sank at his words, but she swallowed her sadness and nodded. She showed him a fake smile. “That’s fine,” Her voice came out weaker than she thought it would and her cheeks turned pink in embarrassment. “Peter!” A male voice called out. Peter turned around a smiled. Flash jogged towards the two and clapped him on the back. “You ready?” Flash asked. “Yep, let’s get going.” Peter affirmed and he shut his locker with a loud slam. Peter and Flash walked away, without even say a simple bye to Y/N. She turned and looked helplessly at her distant friend.

Y/N found her way outside. The backyard was just as lively as inside. The grass was littered with red cups and bottles. She spotted her friend Alyssa who had vibrant purple hair. “Hey Alyssa,” Y/N said as she approached the girl.

“Heyy Y/N!” Alyssa said excitedly, “Want to join our Beer Pong game?” She asked enthusiastically and motioned for Y/N to come over. Y/N nodded, a smile on her face. The time passed, she forgot about Peter and the keg stand, and she found herself downing more and getting more and more tipsy. “Hey Alyssa, Ima gonna go to the bathroom” Y/N stated, grabbed a half filled cup and headed back into the house, almost hitting the sliding glass door on her way in. During the time she was gone, the party seemed to have gotten more crowded. Fluorescent Adolescent by the Arctic Monkeys was playing loudly, and she found herself swaying to song. She needed to find a bathroom to re energize, maybe flash her face with cold water. Y/N wandered down a long hallway and kept opening random doors hoping to the find the bathroom. She swung open a door and almost dropped her drink at what she saw. Two people in the back of bathroom were basically on top of each other. They were kissing in a fast and sloppy way, and the girls exposed legs were around the guys hips. Y/N couldn’t see who she was kissing, since her head was blocking the view. The guy that was being kissed looked away and spotted Y/N. She locked eyes with him and realized it was Peter. “Oh my god!” Y/N shrieked, she looked away and winced, “I’m so sorry, I- you guys should’ve locked the door!”

Peter pushed the girl off of him, and the girl turned around and looked disgusted. “How long have you been watching?” The brunette yelled as she gathered her things. “I swear, i just walked in, I’m so so sorry” Y/N babbled. The brunette picked up her abandoned cup and threw it on Y/N, spilling its contents on Y/N’s face and shirt. “You perv!” She hissed and left the bathroom in a rush. The door behind the brunette closed with a soft clicked. The bathroom was almost silent, besides the trickle of beer from Y/N’s clothes which dripped on the linoleum floor. “I’m sorry.” Y/N whispered as she turned to the sink and turned on the tap water. The air became stiff and awkward. Peter stared at her for a moment before acting. “Here, lemme help.” He murmured and grabbed a coral colored towel off the shelf. He moved towards her but Y/N backed up quickly. “I’m fine.” She said harshly and frowned at herself. Peter froze and placed the towel on the counter. She started dabbing the towel on her shirt, and hoped for the best. He moved towards the door to leave but Y/N stopped him. “Peter wait.” She said softly. Peter stopped and looked at her. “What happened between us?” She asked, her voice raspy and fragile, as if it were about to break.

“What do you mean?” Peter questioned.

“What do I mean?” Y/N repeated. “Peter you left! You just completely cut us out of your life!” She cursed.

“I wanted to branch out! What’s wrong with that?” Peter argued, getting closer to her.

“There’s nothing wrong with! I just-” Suddenly she broke down, she wasn’t used to confrontation, in her mind this talk was supposed to happen differently. “I thought you hated me, you blew us off to hang out with Flash and his friends! Of all people!” She let out a sob. Peter was silent, unsure of what to say or how to react.

“We were a team! And you just left us behind in the dust like we were trash!” Y/N yelled, as her sadness and anger mixed and boiled inside of her. She flung her hands up in the air. “What kind of person does that to his friends!” She croaked as the dams flung open, fat tears rushed down her face, and she slid down onto the floor. Y/N placed her head in her hands. She felt vulnerable, embarrassed, angry, sad, all at once. What the fuck did I just do. She let out a frustrated groan as she fumbled with her wet shirt. This whole situation is fucked up. Y/N was 100% sure Peter was just going to leave her in a pool of her own sadness. Instead he sat down on the edge of the tub. He pulled off his denim jacket and handed it down to her, when she didn’t react, he placed it gingerly on her knees.

“I’m sorry Y/N I didn’t know you felt that way.” Peter said, the words left his lips effortlessly. Why did it feel like he didn’t care?

Y/N looked up at him for a short second, her face twisted into disgust. “I’m sorry Y/N I didn’t realize you felt that way, It’s not like I abandoned my best friends who I’ve known forever for people who used to call me Penis” Y/N mimicked. Peter looked baffled. “You know Peter, you need to get your priorities straight.” she spat. Y/N stood up quickly, which made her dizzy and she swayed on her feet. The denim jacket fell to the floor with a muffled thump. Peter reached out and caught her by the arms, Y/N forced herself out of his grip. “I’m going home.” Y/N said as she left the bathroom and into the crowded party.

“Y/N wait!” Peter called after her, he squeezed his way through the crowd.

Y/N left the house and the cold, outside air hit her like brick. A shiver ran down her spine. “Y/N you can’t drive, you’ve had to much!” She heard Peter call out from behind her.

“Bullshit Peter! Like you haven’t had anything!” Y/N bit back, she jammed her key into the lock, and missed a few times, but on the third time it slid in. “Let me drive you home. We can talk.” Peter suggested, his denim jacket slung over his shoulder. His chestnut curls were tousled, and his cheeks were a light pink. “I’m not letting a drunk drive me home!” Y/N explained loudly, her eyes avoided his.

“I’ve barely had anything!” Peter explained. “I swear. Look!” He kept touching his nose with his index finger. This almost drew a smile out of Y/N, but instead she frowned. Everything inside her was telling her to just run, but for some reason, she tossed him the keys. He caught them with ease, and walked over to the drivers side. Y/N moved to the passenger side and slid in. She shut the door and rested her head on the window. Peter started the car with ease, and backed out of the driveway.

(Listen to this while reading the next part if you really want to set the mood)

The car was void of conversation, except for the sound of the windshield wipers brushing off the rain which had started to fall, and the soft voice of Chris Martin which drifted out of the speakers. “Y/N when I said I was sorry, I really was, I really didn’t know you felt that way.” Peter said softly.

“Well that’s how people feel when you abandon them.” She responded, her voice weak from yelling.

“I didn’t abandon-” Peter started before letting out a sigh. “I guess I did.” He said thoughtfully. “So it finally hit you.” Y/N let out, her head still turned away from him.

Peter murmured incoherently. “Flash looked so happy surrounded by all these people, and don’t get me wrong I was so happy with you guys, but I felt like something was missing.” He explained. Y/N stayed silent, unable to come up with anything snarky. “I just thought having more friends could fill this strange void, and soon enough I was surrounded by Flash’s friends and more. I wanted to hang out with you, I really did, I just felt like I had to live up to this social standard.” Peter added, his eyes glancing at you ever so often.

“So we weren’t enough for you Peter? I wasn’t enough for you?” Y/N snapped back.

“I just wanted more friends! More connections! We were only four!” Peter argued in his defense.

“Well maybe I should’ve bought you a scale Peter, since it seems like you need to find balance in your life!” Y/N shot at him. Peter let out a small ouch. “I cared about you Pete and more than a friend way, I really did, and maybe I still do! I don’t even know anymore.” She added, again she felt vulnerable, normally she doesn’t spill her guts to people, but it’s Peter. He always had a way to get her to talk. The car was silent again. Peter let out a sigh as he turned down the familiar street which housed your apartment building. He internally groaned as he realized this ride would come to end. He pulled up in front of the building, and shut off the ignition. The rain was falling harder now, and he really dreaded the walk home. Y/N seemed to have noticed the rain too, and against her brain’s conscious she did what her heart told her too.

“You should come in, to get out of this rain.” She suggested softly. Peter looked at her with shock, even when he had fucked up so badly, she still cared. Peter didn’t think twice. “On 3?” He asked and Y/N nodded. “1..2..3!” Both Peter and Y/N bolted out of the car, they ran towards the apartment building. The rain hit their faces, and soaked their clothes. Y/N pushed open the door and held it for Peter. For a moment, Peter thought he saw a ghost of smile on Y/N’s face.

The elevator ride up to the seventh floor was quiet, both teenagers were standing on opposites side of the elevator. The doors opened with a ding, and they both walked out. Y/N fumbled with her keys when they arrived at the front door, and unlocked the door quietly. “My parents aren’t home so you can be as loud as you want.” Y/N stated nonchalantly. Peter shuffled inside the house, and pulled off his soaking wet shoes, and Y/N did the same. Y/N motioned for him to follow her, and she lead him to her room. “Lemme get you a towel.” She said softly as she left the room and went to the bathroom down the hall. Peter stood in the doorway for a moment, and let the familiar yet intoxicating smell of strawberries fill his nostrils. He stepped into the carpeted room with baby blue walls. Peter noticed it was still the exact same as it was two years ago. Fairy lights strung up above the bed, a few posters on every wall, and the red crate which held Y/N’s favorite records sat in the corner. He realized he missed this room so so much. He let his hands caress the recognizable striped duvet cover, and he sat down on the bed and just let it go. Peter’s hands went to his face to stifle the broken sobs that came out of his mouth.

“Hey, hey, hey” Y/N’s soft voice lilted through his ears. She got on her knees in front of him, and pulled his hands away from his face slowly. “It’s ok,” Y/N shushed as she gathered him in her arms. Peter rested his head on her shoulder, his arms around her back. “God I fucked up so badly.” Peter whispered sadly into her neck. Y/N stayed quiet, her hand caressing his soft curls. “I’m so fucking sorry, I’m sorry I was such a dick to you, and Ned, and Mj.” Peter apologized. “God, I didn’t realized how much I missed this, this place, you,” He confessed, his hands still around her. “P-please forgive me,” He pulled away and looked up at her. His cheeks were pink, and his eyes seem to spill over with tears. At this point Y/N couldn’t help but cry too. She gave him a weak smile.

In the depths of her heart, she realized she still loved him, and now she had the chance to have him back in her life. She wiped away at his tears with her thumbs, and looked away for a moment. Y/N gave him a slow nod. “Ok.” She whispered, “But you can’t blow us off again. Balance Pete.” She explained. When she turned to look at him again, they were just inches apart, their noses barely touching. He placed a soft hand on her cheek, his thumb stroking her upper cheek. “Thank you,” He said quietly. Y/N’s heart was beating right out of her chest. Heavy butterflies seemed to have been unleashed in her stomach, and her cheeks tinged pink.

She was expecting Peter to pull away, stand up and start drying himself off with the towel, but instead the two stayed in that position for a few moments. A comfortable silence had fallen between them. “Can I kiss you?” Peter asked in a hushed voice. Y/N’s breath got caught in her throat and she found herself speechless. She nodded slowly, and before she knew it Peter was kissing her. It was soft, tender, and it seemed to communicate what they were both feeling. His hands held her face gently, not wanting it to go to fast. Peter pulled away too soon for Y/N’s liking, he removed his hands from her face, and took her hand in his.

A smile appeared on Peter’s face, and he looked away in embarrassment. “God I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.” He said softly. “Well you had your chance at the Winter Ball, but you didn’t show.” Y/N said with a small smile and a roll of her eyes. Peter’s face fell again. “I’m so sorry Y/N, I fucked up. How can I make up to you?” He asked. “Wanna eat Ben and Jerry’s while playing Battlefront? And maybe you can stay the night if you want” Y/N suggested with a smile. Peter grinned, “That sounds like a blast.”

#Peter parker #tom holland #peter parker x reader #x reader #marvel imagines #imagines #spiderman #spiderman x reader #spider-man: homecoming

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kristablogs · 4 years

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Meet the dads who can’t quit pinewood derby racing—even after their kids are over it

After his first race in an adult league, Dan Inman says, “I decided to roll up my sleeves and figure out how to be competitive.” (Heami Lee/)

Popular Science’s Play issue is now available to everyone. Read it now, no app or credit card required.

Dan Inman had anticipated this moment for months. It was the first Saturday of December 2018—tournament day—and he thought the cars he’d built could outperform anyone’s. They were compact. Sleek. Speedy. He watched anxiously as his pinewood derby racers took their spots at the top of a long, sloping aluminum track. When each heat began, they whizzed down the gleaming course. In the other lanes, the competition hopelessly gave chase. Inman’s entries finished at the front of the pack in two key rounds, and a thought slunk into his mind: He might just be the champion.

Then officials brought out the scales. Pinewood derby competitions are organized by class, like in boxing, and each has different rules. The categories Inman had won require that each wheel weigh a certain number of grams—because the lighter the disk, the faster the car. Break the rules, and you’re disqualified.

A referee carefully plucked one from each winner. Both registered two-hundredths of a gram too light. Inman was out.

“I was sick to my stomach,” he says. “The experience wasn’t just heartbreaking—it was embarrassing.” He’d have to wait 12 months for another shot at becoming a national pinewood champion.

Anyone who was a Boy Scout probably knows what a derby car is. Most likely your parents helped you fashion blocks of pine or balsa into a light, four-wheeled racer, usually about the width and length of an iPhone. You made them to win merit badges. For many, the experience is merely a cherished childhood memory.

But some adults never outgrow their derby days. These fathers are über-obsessed, similar to the guys who gush over model trains or miniature rockets. Inman, a 62-year-old U.S. Navy vet, is one of about 40 competitors in the National Pinewood Derby Racing League. Founded in 2008, it’s one of the longest-running such circuits in America, where about 10 pro leagues operate today. Having assembled the racers as kids and guided their own children through the sport, these grown men now want to earn their own bragging rights.

We’re talking middle-aged dudes with serious big dad energy who go to great lengths to craft the perfect car—forget prefab kits. Bandsaws shave the frame components down to a quarter of an inch wide; precision lathes trim acrylic wheels; syringes grease nail axles with synthetic oil. All to cross a tiny checkered line just one ten-thousandth of a second quicker. “We’re all geeks, you know,” Inman says.

Every year, it all comes down to the Man of the Mountain race in December—basically the league’s Super Bowl. Besides the title, almost $2,000 in cash is up for grabs. As Inman learned, though, it’s not just about who finishes first.

Inman’s dedication presents itself as soon as you near his home in southern Maryland. His pickup and his wife’s sedan jockey for space on a sliver of driveway, the garage long ago ceded as a private workshop. Inman calls it his man cave. Instead of a big-screen TV, he has a long workbench loaded with wheels, screwdrivers, scales, and a magnifying lamp. Instead of pleather recliners, drill presses and a miter saw.

Clean-shaven and with closely cropped hair, Inman is nothing if not deliberate—a holdover from his 28 years in the navy. A stack of more than a dozen yellow legal pads, filled with handwritten performance notes on 50 cars, sits on one shelf. He even insulated the garage door to keep the cold winter air from chilling him during the hours he spends tucked into the workbench.

In 1963 Inman’s dad took him to his first pinewood derby event. “I couldn’t wait for my own kids to get of age,” he says. In 1999 he got his chance: His three sons participated in a local league run by Awana, an organization of evangelical Christians that, like the Boy Scouts, hosts races.

Starting that year, Inman became a local legend. After a meet, he went up to a mom whose son’s car didn’t even make it across the finish line and offered to help out. Word of his acumen spread, and soon kids filled his garage for several months every year. He once hosted 17 boys from a local Scout troop; their cars wound up placing first through 17th in a field of 67.

“It got to a point where it was expected,” Inman says: “You go to Dan’s workshop, you’ll have a winning car.” He also competed in occasional adult races staged during the kids’ competitions. Soon he found himself dominating those events too.

By 2016, he was burned out on the amateur scene, and another dad urged him to try going pro. An online search led him to the National Pinewood Derby Racing League.

Inman’s hot pink star car Humble Pie is shown above, at center, surrounded by other models he crafted in his workshop. (Heami Lee/)

The move came naturally. He already knew from the lessons he taught in his workshop that maximizing potential energy (power stored in a car that carries it forward) and minimizing friction were the keys to victory. To boost potential energy, he affixed tiny blocks of dense tungsten around the center of his cars’ rear axles: More weight in the back equals more forward oomph pushing the car down the hill. To cut friction, he polished the axles—special derby-grade stainless steel nails—by wet-sanding with paper up to 12,000 grit, which might as well be cheesecloth, and oiling them to ensure they spun quickly inside the wheel hubs.

Inman’s major breakthrough, though, was how he constructed the bodies. Instead of starting with a solid block of wood, he built the frames from quarter-inch-wide sticks, making the insides hollow. This allowed him to add more tungsten blocks near his back axles while keeping the vehicles under the league’s maximum weight of 143 grams. By January 2017 he had assembled a fleet for four of the six different race classes.

Still, at the outset of that first season he finished consistently near the bottom. Besting dads who were building cars for maybe the first time in their lives had been easy. But league racers employed the same techniques that Inman had used in amateur matches—and more advanced ones, like slightly bending their axles to make their cars zippier. “I was humbled,” he recalls. “So after my first race, I decided to roll up my sleeves, get busy, and figure out how to be competitive.”

Inman had only to look as far as his day job. He’s a contractor at Naval Air Station Patuxent River on the Chesapeake Bay. While not strictly an engineer—his college degree is in aeronautics—he works on testing manned aircraft. If a plan requires that a cargo jet detect radar signals at a certain altitude and speed, for example, it’s Inman’s job to juggle the mission, maintenance, and testing schedules to make sure the right model of aircraft is available to engineers at the right time. “I knew how to isolate and set up a test, so I just applied that knowledge toward my approach in pinewood derby,” he says.

To pick an oil to use on his axles, Inman purchased a bunch from multiple online derby shops, set up his own league-regulation aluminum track, and created an elaborate two-car test. For his control, he applied Krytox lubricating oil, a standard in many Scout competitions, to the axles. He then ran each vehicle down the track 18 times. The first six runs settled the fluid and stabilized the racers’ speed; the next 12 runs determined the Krytox’s effectiveness. Then he’d rinse and repeat by cleaning off the old lubricant, applying a new one, and going through the whole 18-run process all over again. He threw out the slowest and fastest times for each oil and averaged the remaining 10, repeating the process with 10 different products. After a couple weeks, he found the one that gave both cars their best lap times.

“Through a ridiculous amount of testing, I started to figure things out and improve,” Inman says. By the last race of the season, in November 2017, his cars were winning. He earned rookie of the year. The next month, at Man of the Mountain, he was runner-up.

Racers compete for pinewood glory at Joel Redfearn’s modest rambler house in St. George, in southwestern Utah. Redfearn owns and operates the league and was once just like Inman: a dad whose three sons participated but who didn’t want to stop once they did. When the outfit’s first owner moved east five years ago, Redfearn stepped in.

“I was one of those obsessed racers who didn’t want to see it go anywhere,” he says. In December 2019, Redfearn, 43, quit his job as a Toyota mechanic to manage the operation as well as two derby-parts businesses full-time.

He stages monthly competitions in his basement. The wooden tracks of a bygone era have been replaced: Redfearn’s races happen on a slick 42-foot aluminum runway with a computerized lane timer. As many as 40 people enter, and Redfearn says usually 100 to 140 cars will glide down his four-lane course. Since all the events happen here, most contenders race by proxy, shipping their carefully packaged fleets to Utah.

Matches themselves are fairly straightforward. There are now 10 different championship-series classes, each with its own construction guidelines. Four categories, for instance, have strict rules about how much wheels must weigh; another one limits vehicle length to 4 inches. People can send in as many cars and enter as many classes as they like. (Racers pay a fee for every vehicle they enter, starting at $10 and gradually dropping the larger the fleet.) Some guys attempt just a handful of classes. Others, like Inman, try all 10. And it is, for the most part, guys.

Racers earn points at each competition, a structure borrowed from motor-sports racing leagues like Nascar. The higher you place, the more you win. Get enough by year’s end, and you’ll find yourself battling the best of the best at Man of the Mountain.

Meticulous only begins to describe participants’ fanaticism. “Just prepping one set of wheels for one car can take several hours,” Redfearn says, “and that’s not even the axles. We’re fighting for every ten-thousandth of a second, and lots of times we have races decided on that fourth digit.”

In his rookie year, Inman regularly lost to Brian Crane, a veteran who had risen through the ranks to become one of the league’s most formidable competitors. But over time, Inman discovered how to build faster models. He started using lighter one-eighth-inch sticks for the body so he could add more metal and potential energy. He also began slightly bending his axles to create what racers call steer. Center-lane rails on the track keep cars from flying off, but bumping on and off them can also make vehicles wobble and slow. Inman instead makes his cars ride on the rail the whole way down, which generates less friction than the alternative. “It’s those little details that started making all the difference,” he says.

As he learned in 2018, even a slight tweak can turn what would otherwise be a sweet victory into an agonizing defeat. When he raced his way back to Man of the Mountain that year, Inman was confident he’d win. But he’d blown his chances by shaving too much plastic from his wheels, making them just a hair too light. “I immediately went out and got a high-end scale that measures one one-thousandths of a gram,” he says. “Yeah, it gets that anal at times.”

Despite a disqualification costing him the top spot, Inman still earned enough points that year to repeat as runner-up. He lost, as he had in 2017, to Crane.

“Just prepping one set of wheels for one car can take several hours,” says league owner Joel Redfearn. “And that’s not even the axles.” (Heami Lee/)

Almost two weeks. That’s how much time Inman took off work to get ready for Man of the Mountain 2019. By late November, he’d selected the 18 cars he would enter in 10 classes. These were the ones that had run the fastest throughout the season, and the ones he thought gave him the surest shot.

Prepping his chosen fleet for race day entails a process the derby world calls tuning: oiling the axles to enhance speed and bending them to create steer. After a thorough polishing, Inman coats his nails with Jig-A-Loo, a silicone-based lubricant. They dry overnight underneath plastic containers to keep out dust. Afterward he applies two types of oil. When the axles finally make it onto the car, Inman achieves steer with a screwdriver, twisting the nails until they position the nose of each car two inches to the left so it rides the center-lane rail the length of the track.

He’s just as careful with his wheels. A friend in Virginia who competes in a different league custom-cuts each set of four. Inman’s touch is a quadruple layer of Icon car wax ($300 a bottle) anywhere the disk touches the track or the axle. Each coat dries for up to eight hours in a small oven—the kind nail salons use to cure polish. Afterward he weighs the wheels to ensure he won’t be disqualified again.

Still, there are variables he can’t control. Competing by proxy is risky, because he doesn’t know until race day how his fleet fared in transit. If the shipping box gets turned on its side for too long, axle oil will drip. If the package loiters on a hot tarmac, the fluid might evaporate. And once the contest begins, even a perfectly engineered vehicle can’t avoid “dirty air,” the breeze generated by the competition passing on the left and right. Enough of it can wiggle a winner right out of first place—though each class runs multiple heats, giving every contender a chance to race in all four lanes and mitigating the overall effect. “There’s all these little aspects that can help or hurt you in speed, and that’s the frustrating part,” Redfearn says.

On the first Saturday of December 2019, Inman’s 18 cars join another 124 from 26 competitors across America to vie for the title of Man of the Mountain.

First-place finishers in the different classes win $100 each. At the end of the day, Redfearn will calculate annual points totals, and the racer at the top becomes champion and wins an additional $500. Redfearn mans the track while his wife, Ronda, runs the camera down at the finish line. They livestream every race, which enables Inman to watch from his workshop.

Just after 1 p.m., he finds out if his preparation paid off. It’s time for the semifinals of BASX Pro. Not only is it the most competitive class—more people race in it than in any other—but it’s also one of the two in which Inman was disqualified last year.

A slim little racer—shorter than a deck of cards, painted pink, and called Humble Pie—idles behind one of four starting pins. When the pins fall, Humble Pie goes sailing down the silver-white track, the only audible noise a gentle whirring of plastic wheels. As it accelerates, it flies past the entries in the other three lanes, finishing in 2.9512 seconds.

Humble Pie advances to the BASX Pro finals, where it wins the day’s opening round. This time, when Redfearn measures a wheel, it makes weight. By the end of the afternoon, three of Inman’s other entries have taken first in three other classes, which is how he finally earns $900 and the ultimate prize, the title.

Yet as he savors his victory, Inman can’t help but recall last year’s lesson: It’s never entirely about who crosses the finish line in front, especially when some cars don’t even have the chance to get there. The fleet from Crane, the racer who bested him the previous two years, fell to the worst of all things that can go wrong in pinewood derby racing—a shipping delay. “I love having the victory,” Inman says. “But it was somewhat hollow without actually beating the best, head-to-head.”

So for another year he’ll toil away in his workshop. Bending axles. Waxing wheels. Waiting in hushed anticipation for a chance to defend his title. Eagerly chasing every ten-thousandth of a second.

This story appeared in the Summer 2020, Play issue of Popular Science.

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scootoaster · 4 years