Jim Olson with the Fargo racer.
The Derby for Vets celebrates its tenth year Saturday in a new venue with opportunities for kids to compete, a derby snow luge, and expanded silent auction.
Dan Jacobson, the event’s tireless founder better known as “Derby Dan,” said they are hoping to break their ten-year goal of raising more than $100,000 for the Fargo VA this year.
Todd Hase and Jim Olson are former Derby champions. The two friends’ derby origin story is a common one. Their kids were competing in pinewood derby races as part of their scouting troops and enlisted their dads’ help in the building. Neither had an auspicious start. Olson, a self-proclaimed “car guy,” even put some research time in before helping his daughter build her car.
“My brother is a research physicist. Physics says the farther something falls, the faster it goes. I loaded all my weight in the back of the car. Turns out I built a car that had the wiggles or as I named it that day, The Heartbreaker.”
They came in last.
Hase and his son had similar problems. Their first run down the track didn’t even cross the finish line thanks to a misaligned screw.
But they recovered, and then some.
“We weren’t just going to give up,” Hase said. “Jim started researching all sorts of different boards online. It snowballed from there.”
“On a personal level, I don’t really like to lose,” Olson said.
Eight years later, Hase and Olson’s Naughty Wood Racing team, which also includes Mike Hagen and Dave Stillwell, is one of the most decorated in Derby history. They are in semi-retirement now but haven’t retired from sharing speed tips on YouTube and helping amateur racers build cars via Performance Pinewood, a supplier for derby car kits the two men founded together.
Hase explained how they decided to start the small business.
“Over the years we evolved our process for how we were building cars and how we cut our blocks. Weights, axle prep, and wheel prep… we put it all together with a very streamlined design. Jim and I spent a lot of weekends and late evenings in his garage. We were building a ton of cars, and learned a lot. So we decided to start our own thing to help people out. It’s been a fun hobby and side project to really help promote the Derby,” Hase said.
Todd Hase
Lead scorekeeper for the Derby Anne Leonhart also first got involved with pinewood racing as a scouting parent. She and her son Jack had better luck in their first race.
“I think he was in kindergarten. He was in the lowest little level and he won his level, and then went the next level and the next, and he won the whole thing,” she said.
That first derby car from all those years ago is still Anne’s submission each year in the Derby for the Vets. And it means a lot to her. Her father, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, died a few years ago, but his spirit is very much alive in the design and legacy of that car.
“It has my dad written all over it. It’s got Marine Corps symbols and everything. And of course now my son (Jack) serves in the Marines. It’s for both of them.”
Leonhart’s dad depended on the VA for his medical needs, some of which stemmed from his time in the service.
“It’s really neat to be part of the Derby for the Vets because all the donations go straight to the VA, which is where I got to spend a lot of time with my dad and of course a lot of other heroes. It just means everything to me that it stays local, right here in Fargo,” she said.
The Derby starts at noon Saturday at the Fargo Air Museum. Cars can be entered up until the start of the race, and everyone is invited to come and cheer on the racers.
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