Any Other Pinewood Derby Dads?

[RobertN]

Or hobo pie part done...

You guys ever do the omelet in a zip lock back dropped in boiling water?

Yes. I think that every scout has to learn that lesson the same way.

 

[aczlan]

You guys ever do the omelet in a zip lock back dropped in boiling water?

Yep. Quite tasty and no cleanup to speak of.

Aaron Z

 

[forgeblast]

I learned that trick from our camp cook(bag omelet). He would be able to make eggs for the whole camp that way. Nice trick and no clean up

 

[buckeyefarmer]

our scouts are camping right now. I think we had 2" of rain today. Good thing I had to go into work today. :laughing:

 

[MossRoad]

Don't laugh. There is a large following of three on the ground cars. Some swear by it.

Seems logical: 1 less contact point = less friction :thumbsup:

I briefly thought about adjusting one of my son's wheels but didn't. Second son has his first derby as Cub Scout soon.

So last year my daughter put a LOT of work into her car. Designed it, practices on scrap pine with the scroll saw, did the cuts on the real car herself, filed, sanded, painted all herself. And we did our best to set the wheels straight, all 4 on the ground, graphite lube, exacty 5 OZ, etc... and she came in about dead middle. Somewhere around 35 out of 70. She was happy. We noticed the wedge cars went faster than her design, so she wanted to try that this year.

So she bought a kit from the craft store that was just a thin wedge of wood, 4 nails an 4 wheels. Now that she is a year older, she didn't want to put all that much work into it. So she didn't bother sanding or carving it. She just brush painted it a base coat of blue. Then we drilled two 3/8" holes from the rear of the car about 3" deep. It almost came out the top of the wedge. We jammed 20 of those half circle weights in the holes and she painted a pattern on the car with a brush. We put the wheels on the nails and gave them a test spin. They felt fine, but we decided to try to remove the two burs from the underside of the nail head. After we did one nail and tested it, it seemed like the wheel didn't spin as well, so she decided to skip attempting to polish the axles. We talked about trying to do a three wheeler by re-cutting one of the axle slots on one front wheel, but she said no. She was happy going with 4 and didn't want to put a bunch of work into the car to finsh in the middle again. She was more into it for the social event this year. So we pushed the axles in, pumped a bunch of graphite into the wheels from the backside and she was done. She had MAYBE an hour and 20 minutes into the whole thing. We left it at about 4.8OZ for race day.

We took it up to the kitchen to show mom and set it on the counter. Right away it started rolling towards the sink! We noticed that the front left wheel was about 1/8" off of the countertop. We had an accidental three wheeler! :laughing: (we also had graphite on mom's countertop ).

Pushing the front left wheel to the ground you could really feel the heaviness of the weighted rear end as it would snap back up as soon as you took your finger off. We laughed hard.

So the next day we go to the event. We hot glue more weights onto the top rear to bring it to 4.93 OZ. She is given number 17. The Boy Scouts lend the Girl Souts their track for the day and they run the laptop computer hooked to the timing gear. The track is 5 lanes wide. They put cars 1 through 5 on the track and run the first race. Then they remove car 1, shift all of the remiaining cars up one lane, add car 6 to lane one and run the next race. They keep removing the car from lane 5 after each race, shifting over and adding one. Eventually, car 1 gets back in it and runs four more races. So, all of the cars run 5 races, one in each lane. Completely fair! Then we break for lunch, and they run all the cars again in a second heat. Very cool. :thumbsup:

The finish line displays the winners of each race 1-5 places, but that is all. After the first heat, they announce who is in 1st through 3rd in all four age divisions.

So, my daughter's car comes up for her first race. They drop the gate and her car looks like its shot out of a cannon dropping down the ramp and she finishes 3.5' ahead of the next closest car! The crowd goes "OOOoooo". I duck under my ball cap. The dad's all give me evil stares and murmers of rasenfrasen are heard. Daughter looks at me and smiles real big. She wins the next 4 races, too. Then we watch the rest of the 70 cars compete.

After 1st heat she is 2nd place in her division, behind her friend that lives across the street. After 2nd heat, they announce winners. her friend finished 1st in her division. Another girl finished 2nd. RATS! She got bumped.

Then, instead of announcing 3rd, they announce grand champion overall and it is my daughter!

After 10 races the average time difference between her and her friend's car was sixteen onethousandths of one second. :shocked:

So, there you go. Buy a wedge shaped kit, don't do any modifications, add some weight to the centerline in the rear of the car, push the wheels into the standard slots, lube em with graphite and off you go. :laughing:

I read a comment on a website regarding three wheeled cars and a father made a very insightful comment....

Most of the cars in the derby are 3 wheelers for the simple reason that if you can get any kid to build one of these cars themselves and get all 4 wheels on the ground that is a miracle. :thumbsup:

 

[bdeboer]

They put cars 1 through 5 on the track and run the first race. Then they remove car 1, shift all of the remiaining cars up one lane, add car 6 to lane one and run the next race. They keep removing the car from lane 5 after each race, shifting over and adding one. Eventually, car 1 gets back in it and runs four more races. So, all of the cars run 5 races, one in each lane. mbsup:

I was working out of town, but my wife said they did not switch lanes for our kids this year.

 

[MossRoad]

I was working out of town, but my wife said they did not switch lanes for our kids this year.

Kinda odd... I remember us switching lanes 40 years ago in scouts.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

Kinda odd... I remember us switching lanes 40 years ago in scouts.

I think each pack does it differently. When I was a kid we did the best 2 out of 3 with a lane switch between each race. Today my son's pack just did one race. We also did only 2 cars per race.

 

[MossRoad]

I really liked the 5 lane track they brought out. There were 70 cars and each one ran 5 races per heat. All 70 cars ran 5 races in about 1:15, we broke for quick snak, then another 1:15 fro 2nd heat and we were done.

So, two and a half hours for 700 races! That's pretty good. :thumbsup:

 

[bdeboer]

Kinda odd... I remember us switching lanes 40 years ago in scouts.

Different scout master than when my older boy went through, but they used to switch lanes.