Derbies, Classics, Grand Prix, Regattas and Other Races

The Derby
The derby is one of the best ways for scouting collectives to get together and enjoy some comraderie and compassionate competition. The derby is a race involving car like pods. For the most part a derby will consist of homemade racing vehicles on homemade tracks. A nice deviation from the traditional derby is the so-called 'demolition derby' where the name of the game is not to win a series of consecutive races, but to survive a series of prepared collisions. The Futurist art collective was big into derby style racing, especially demolition derbies. The most well-known derby associated with scouting is the infamous 'pinewood derby' where wooden cars are made and raced on plastic wheels.

The Classic
Classics are an odd group in scout collective racing. Classics traditionally refer to balloon racing, and any number of balloon styles can accomodate these races. Homemade aeronautic devices can also be place squarely in the camp of classic racing, such as rockets, planes, helicopters, and any number of remote controlled flying devices.

The Grand Prix
The largest and most obscene of all races is the grand prix, so noted for its heavy use of a grand prize, usually a cup or chalise. These races are usually done in homemade vehicles with a human driver, so much of the grand prix itself involves the sport of racing, where the physical presence of the driver is just as important as the object that is racing.

The Regatta
Regattas are the great boat races, usually wind powered. Traditionally scout collectives create the raingutter regatta scenarios, where raingutters are outfitted with a liquid to race home spun boats in, using their own breath as the wind power for the boats.

Other Races
The idea of getting collectives together to race each other is one of fellowship and togetherness, it is not so much that objects are placed into battles of speed or strength with each other as much as friendships are made. So, to this end, a race is a good excuse to get together and share ideas, feelings, and the ocassional homemade racing project. So any form of racing is really just as valid as any other.

Some suggestions for racing forms:

*derby
*classic
*grand prix
*regatta
*rally
*jamboree
*demolition derby
*get together
*shindig
*whodunnit
*jam
*traditional
*commemorative
*spectacular
*show
*expo
*march
*race
*finale
*field day
*handicap
*recontre
*blowout
*clam bake
*hullabaloo
*gala
*festival
*junket
*wake
*symposium
*bust
*escapade
*fair
*tournament
*caper
*bowl
*cup
*trophy
*quadrille
*romp-a-roo
*other, etc.

Some suggestions of things to race:

*balloons
*boats
*cars
*bikes
*small animals
*rockets
*time machines
*unicycles
*sieves
*magnets
*planes
*potatoes
*other vegetables
*frozen tofu
*robots
*movement machines
*cryopods
*velocipedes
*rickshaws
*pontoons
*rafts
*floats
*tugs
*manomotors
*schooners
*rockaways
*chariots
*helicopters
*hot rods
*trains
*barrows
*phaetons
*kittereens
*metaphors
*pataphors
*brooms
*magic carpets
*other, etc.