Derby Talk

Thanks to everyone for your input. I will talk it all over with my grandson and see what he wants to do. I'm fighting off this tendency to make all these decisions myself. I want my grandson to do well but it is HIS car. There is more important things to be learned from this experience than just win...

Assuming I use the slots, how do you adjust (bend and/or turn) the axles when you are tuning on a test board?

Looks like the way to stay within the rules is to use an end mill to make a larger than axle size hole in the end of the slots. Fill the holes with epoxy and after it sets up, drill the holes as I please.

My intent, before I got to see the rules, was to build a dog tracker as I did with another grandson. If we mean the same thing by "dog tracker," you can still do so if you are allowed to put some bend in the axles. Then turn the top of the rear behind the DFW slightly back and the top of ...

Thanks for the replies! My intent, before I got to see the rules, was to build a dog tracker as I did with another grandson. The first thing I looked for, after receiving the rules, was anything that prohibited drilling axle holes. As Sebastian mentioned, it's possible the rules intent is to keep th...

I have another grandson that has joined scouts and I have been ask to help him with his car. I very much enjoyed helping my other grandson with his derby car and learned a lot right here on this forum. Thanks to all of you. This grandson happens to be in a different district, with different rules. A...

My view: First, best performance for cambered rear axles exceeds best performance for level rear axles. Getting "best performance" from each is different, and seems to be a bit more difficult (depending on measurement methods used) for cambered rears. Stan, I don't doubt that you are corr...

I recently had an interaction regarding rear wheel alignment with a very experienced racer . I have straight axle holes and therefore have to bend axles in order to attain camber, he said: "The problem as you allude to is the propensity of the wheels to want to migrate out out to the head of t...

Stan, I have no doubt there are many competitive cars that never get the chance to participate at district or council. I have heard there is one pack in our county that has 60 to 70 participate in their PWD. It seems unfair that they only get to send 3 cars to district. Seems to me many of those kid...

Congrats Eli. So how about the name, Dog Tracker? Thanks 5 J's....... Dog Tracker is a reference to the way the car is made. It is a rail rider but instead of cutting 1/16 off the front of the car it is built to run a little sideways to keep the other 3 wheels away from the rail. Check out the thre...

This is my grandson Eli and his dog tracker car. He won his pack race and finished 5th at both district and council.

Thanks Stan, We take that as a compliment. I agree about having the "big race" for only 10 to 16 racers. It will be that way every year by design if not changed. There are 2 districts in the council and they take the top 8 cars from each district. At no level is it broken down into the Tig...

The council races are done. There was only 10 cars out of the 16 eligible that showed up. I was pleased with the way the car ran and believe it was faster. I could not be in a place that I could see the track timer. I don't believe the "readout" showed the times anyway, only the order of f...

It doesn't take long around here to figure out you aren't the only one to have thought about something. This forum is a wealth of information.

And the way I made my first cars were dog trackers with no bent axles but its a lot trickier to do and if you don't have a track I would use the other method. Good luck and always try stuff out of the box I can't wait to tell my grandson his car is a dog tracker. He will get a big kick out of that....