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The Pinewood Derby is Serious Business

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  • The Pinewood Derby is Serious Business


  • #2
    Re: The Pinewood Derby is Serious Business

    When my kids were in Scouts there was rampant cheating in the derby. I decided to take over teching in the cars, and announced many time the rules would be enforced to the letter of the law. Still, cars showed up extremely illegal, and I wouldn't let them race. Several fathers tried to take me to the parking lot to "discuss" the matter.

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    • #3
      Re: The Pinewood Derby is Serious Business

      Now that you mention it, back when my boys were in the scouts, we built these:

      Brian's first car named after Harry Potter's broom, The Firebolt


      Jake's first car....The Star


      The second year we did the derby, we went with police car themed cars



      The only rules I believe at the time were that the cars had to weigh under or at a certain weight, and no liquid lubricants were allowed. I did use dry graphite on the axles on all of the cars though...

      Notice the shaving of the lead weight to get one of the cars under the max allowable weight
      Whiskey for my men ... and beer for their horses!

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      • #4
        Re: The Pinewood Derby is Serious Business

        yeah, it's serious business


        My fabulous web page

        "If it don't go, chrome it!" --Stroker McGurk

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        • #5
          Re: The Pinewood Derby is Serious Business

          I did a stint in the scouts. Loved to see how all the fathers were teaching their kids how to cheat. At the time (mid-80's) the rule was simply no liquid lubricants and it had to weigh a certain weight, forget what it was but 5 oz. sounds about right. We did use graphite though, it not liquid. I can't tell you how many cars showed up with round bars of lead weights sunk into the back. But the tech guy for our division had an electric drill and drilled out the weight until they passed tech.

          The best story was of my first derby car. I was a little lax in getting it ready, and my mom asked if it was done over breakfast one morning, I said no, and then she reminded me that although the race was Saturday, the finished cars had to be brought to the scout meeting that night. I hadn't even taken it out of the box yet. She told me to go get it, and brought out the butcher knife. I mean literally took out a butcher knife, my Dad's great-uncle was a butcher in the late 1800's, these things will cut through bricks. So I get the box, she pulls out the block of wood, and starts hacking away like a mad women until it was at the weight spec. I slathered on some poster paint and it was a done deal. Since I was a Chevy guy I named it King Krunch. This thing was got awful looking, but it was done, nothing like shooting for mediocrity.

          That night at the scout meeting it was the worst looking one there and I knew it, but whatever. I show up Saturday, go through tech without a blink and then sit there while half the other cars get their lead drilled out (if that was today I'm sure people would have an issue with creating so much lead dust in a room filled with eight year olds). It was a division race with about 6 or 8 scout packs racing in heats. Don't you know that POS won the first 5 races it was in! I also got schooled in what attitudes the cheating fathers fostered in their kids. In the sixth race which was the semi-finals it was the first race that pitted cars from different packs against each other, mine won, and one of the little b@stards who lost stepped on my car at the end of the track. In a stroke of bad luck it broke the bottom of the wood block where the nail fits in to hold the wheel on. I tried to continue on to the next race with the wheel holding on by a hair (they wouldn't let me try to fix it before the next race) but it fell off 3/4 of the way down, but I still managed a 2nd place finish. Of course I clocked the little b@stard on the way to get my car. My scout leader told me that I shouldn't have done it, he deserved it, but I shouldn't have done it.

          I'll have to dig though some of my dads pictures for one of it.
          sigpic

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          • #6
            Re: The Pinewood Derby is Serious Business

            The rules said no modifications to the wheels. Some showed up looking like pizza cutters. Some showed with liquid lube dripping on the scale. A few fathers asked at the first meeting if the cars could run on three wheels, apparently there was some rumor about "less rolling resistance". Nothing said no, I told them to go for it. The three wheel cars didn't track, and scraped the guides until halfway down the slope, where they stuck.
            One car won every single race for two years. All his older brothers also have undefeated cars. I could not find anything illegal on the cars, I still wish I knew what they did.

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            • #7
              Re: The Pinewood Derby is Serious Business

              they used a superconducting magnet, stolen from the Large Hadron Collider
              My fabulous web page

              "If it don't go, chrome it!" --Stroker McGurk

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              • #8
                Re: The Pinewood Derby is Serious Business

                We built one too. Our rules said you could only use the parts in the kit, it didn't say what you could do to them.
                We chucked the wheels up in a drill and cut them down, polished the axels, ect. There were people there that looked like they had store bought cars and we really didn't stand a chance. Nick took charge cutting the body out, but it was real appearent that if we were going to have any wood left I was going to have to step in. This body isn't even close to the origional design we had planned. LOL. I'm not much better with a saw either.

                It was pretty fun though, what else are ya gonna do in the winter?
                Originally posted by TC
                also boost will make the cam act smaller

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                • #9
                  Re: The Pinewood Derby is Serious Business

                  I remember these 4 rules:
                  You had to use the block, wheels and axles from the kit.
                  You could not change the axle location or add to the overall length.
                  Maximum weight limit.
                  And no "modifications" to the wheels.

                  Winning was half car construction and half lane choice. Despite the best efforts of our pack, we had 2 fast lanes and 2 slow lanes and our pack was just too big to run only 2 at a time.

                  The hot ticket is to cut away as much wood as possible and put all your remaining weight into metal washers glued to the inside of the wheels.
                  But wait!!! Is this considered a illegal wheel "modification", or just a legal "addition"? ;)

                  Call Smokey... :D

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                  • #10
                    Re: The Pinewood Derby is Serious Business

                    Originally posted by Aircooled
                    Winning was half car construction and half lane choice. Despite the best efforts of our pack, we had 2 fast lanes and 2 slow lanes and our pack was just too big to run only 2 at a time.
                    Years ago, I ran a car that was on the ragged edge of legality . . . graphite, polished nails, polished wheels (teched legal), correct weight balance, ballasted to fractions of a gram of the maximum weight (it was so close it failed the first weigh-in because the tech guy didn't balance it gently on the scale), optimized aerodynamics . . . . It won everything unitl the finals. The troop leaders' son got lane choice. My car lost by a fraction of an inch. I still sometimes wake up thinking about that race!

                    To add insult to injury, the car that won best appearing was a gaudy slug with a stupid funny car engine from a model kit glued onto the back! So much for engineering excellence!

                    About 98% of the Derby cars I've seen are built wrong.

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                    • #11
                      Re: The Pinewood Derby is Serious Business

                      Originally posted by Speedzzter.blogspot
                      ...

                      To add insult to injury, the car that won best appearing was a gaudy slug with a stupid funny car engine from a model kit glued onto the back! So much for engineering excellence!

                      ...
                      I turned mine into a '32 RPU with the addition of blower, valvecovers, grill, and tailgate from the leftover model parts bin ;D
                      sigpic

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                      • #12
                        Re: The Pinewood Derby is Serious Business

                        I still have my Derby car put up in a box, I am 44 and the one I had came with the hard black phenolic wheels.
                        I will find that car and post pics.
                        My now 22 y/o son raced also,I had to help him along to level the field, tricks included, polishing the nails(main stem and the back side of the head),baking in the oven with graphite,chucking the tires to close the clearance of the hub,sanding the tread area with sandpaper for squarness of the tread to the sidewall and for trueness by spinning, keeping the weight as low as can be. Always bye a few kits to use the best parts out of each box, they vary.

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                        • #13
                          Re: The Pinewood Derby is Serious Business

                          The old narrow phenolic wheels were better than the higher drag "wide" plastic wheels of today. Of course most kids back then wanted wider wheels to emulate the look of Indy cars. But now the science-savvy kids and their Dads often want to narrow the wheels (illegal under most local rules) and use camber to reduce contact friction.

                          I'm not sure I agree with keeping the weight as low as can be. Remember, Force = Mass x Acceleration. Of course, I've spent hours arguing the low weight versus maximum weight question with my brother.

                          Originally posted by joebogey
                          Originally posted by Speedzzter.blogspot
                          ...

                          To add insult to injury, the car that won best appearing was a gaudy slug with a stupid funny car engine from a model kit glued onto the back! So much for engineering excellence!

                          ...
                          I turned mine into a '32 RPU with the addition of blower, valvecovers, grill, and tailgate from the leftover model parts bin ;D
                          Was it quick on the track?

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                          • #14
                            Re: The Pinewood Derby is Serious Business

                            I did that after the official race, but a few years later in wood shop we staged a race because we started bench racing about them after seeing an old track up in the rafters. Beat the other 5 cars from the others in the class. I'm not saying it was the quickest, but it was that day :
                            sigpic

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                            • #15
                              Re: The Pinewood Derby is Serious Business

                              Did you reweigh the car after the customizing? If you were right on the weight limit before, those custom parts might have added a few grams . . . . :o

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