The Valley-wide 5th grade Pinewood Derby took place over the Memorial Day weekend, and the Bobcats of Big Bear Elementary School reclaimed the perpetual trophy that spent 2008 at Baldwin Lane and 2007 at North Shore. Top individual finishers in the Pinewood Derby, which took place during the Big Bear Lake Antique Car Club’s Show and Shine on May 24, were BBES student Mariana Salazar in 4th, Trevor Morrison and Marcus Velasquez of Baldwin Lane in 3rd and 2nd, and Big Bear Elementary student Ty Ewalt in first overall in the Valley-wide competition. Other awards of the day included Best in Show honors for BBES student Madeleine Stiles, and North Shore’s Melisa Ramirez, Logan Huefner, Columbus Shelton and Sophia Rees, whose pink racer was designed to resemble a baby buggy; her colorful attention to detail won Rees a skateboard donated by LeRoys. Within the Boy Scout competition, top finisher was nine-year-old Shane Gibson. In the grownup car category, Peoples Choice Awards went to four vehicles on display during the Show and Shine: the 1923 T-roadster owned by Cliff Fowler, Gary Bechtold’s ’55 Chevy, Rod and Jan Richter’s ’57 Ford, and the 1914 Model T Ford driven by Stan O’Dell which once belonged to his father.
