Digital scales ensured no cheaters. A computerized finish line clocked each car and sent data to a laptop - even though most races were determined by half a car-length or more.
Amid the shoppers at the Annapolis mall, Cub Scouts laid on their bellies watching their creations shoot down the steep six-lane ramp.
"Up until a few years ago, we eye-balled it," said James Barton, a district executive for Boy Scouts of America who has been in the organization for more than four decades.
The parents, however, worried about fairness with the old system, Mr. Barton said.
The digital scales help, and the instantaneous results on the laptop make it possible to run each heat six times - so that each car races once in each lane.
"We don't want people saying lane six is the 'hot lane' or something," Mr. Barton said.
And so for hours yesterday morning, the 45 cars zoomed six at a time down the track, then were carefully transferred back to the top in a specially sub-divided padded box - to keep the cars in the right racing order, organizers said.
"The engineering in some of these is phenomenal," Mr. Barton said. "When you see the father carry in the car in a padded box, you know he's an aerodynamic engineer someplace. He's put it in the wind tunnel at the Naval Academy or something."
The boys, meanwhile, watched from afar.
"They said this track was slower," said 8-year-old Tyler Winship, who won the race among his den mates by two-car lengths.
His red and green "Mustang" was one of the few derby cars that looked like it had been made by an elementary school student.
He named his car "The power of family," and on the side he drew two stick figures holding hands. He inadvertently represented one of the aspects of the derby's race that has endured since the first in 1953 - parents helping their sons.
Or, in Tyler's words, "It could be mainly anyone in a family."
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