Goals for you and him

Your son's goal

Parents: find out the rules that are specific to your Pack. They often have much in common, but important differences in terms.

Find out dimension, weight, lubrication, wheel, race format (round robin, cumulative heats, or head-to-head), and restrictions.

Our was pretty standard. Same dimensions as everyone else - stock BSA cars, no after-market special wheels/axles, no wheel shaving, no springs/bearings/washers/bushings, no wet lube, no lathes, no lightening the wheels, no outside assistance, boys should do as much of the work as possible.

The unique thing about our is that all the boys race four times. One from each of the four tracks to remove any advantages/disadvantage of any specific track. The combined time was their final score.  If you didn't finish, you got disqualified. There were awards for fastest (1-3) in each rank, best looking car, fastest three in an open category (ie, parents and sibling category with the same cars). You need to know how your race is structured so you can talk to your boy as far as what his goal is.  Make it/learn/have fun?  Make a cool car? Doesn't care?  Be fastest?

Even "don't care" is a good answer. This race is for him, not you.  But 9 times out of 10, your boy will grin and say "go fast!". Then this site is for you. Go Google something else for cool designs. That's not me. I make fast cars without cheating. But I will give you tips on fast designs.

Parents' goal

The most immediate goal that a parent needs to decide is how much you want to spend on this little project. In theory, this $6 box of wheels can stay $6. But tools, gadgets, and things will all start to add up.  You can literally spend thousands of dollars on this if you really want to, including handy things like  Read my post on costs for ideas on where I think your money is best spent.

Your other goal should be how much time do you want to spend with your son on this. Look, you love him, but you have a finite amount of time.  I literally spent dozens and dozens of hours teaching him physics before we even started on the car.  He knows why we do things I do and he is totally jazzed about science. 99% of other parents are not as insane as I am about this stuff, so pick and choose what you want to take on board. Remember, this is a commitment for him as it is for you.

If you haven't already, you should also talk about expectation setting. What happens if he doesn't work on it. What happens if you don't remind him (who's responsibility is it). Promise to be there for every step of the way that you will be his guide. Tell him you will be proud of him so long as he does his best. Tell him you will remind him without getting angry, but won't press him if he doesn't do it.