Derby Talk

Here is the 120 foot track we raced on at Indianapolis, not sure if this is the same one you might be talking about but here is video I took of it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZJ7HD7UaTo The first time my wife's and son's cars went down the track they both broke in the front axle area, their sto...

We've never done a regatta and none of us have seen one in action. With that in mind... We are having a Cub Scout Round up this fall. We were thinking of having a Regatta as a drawing card. It looks like a boat could be built in minutes and be able to race right away (I suppose a pinewood derby car...

How do you think increasing the DFW angle reduced the wiggle in the rear? How would lifting the outer edge of the DFW affect the toe in steering?? I think the positive cant does reduce the wiggle. I forgot to look at the video I took of the District race to see if there was any noticeable wiggle. W...

Went from 2.688 to 2.655 and honestly this was before I canted the rear. I had narrowed the front end on both sides and was trying to run the axles straight in the rear and just use a small amount of toe on the front to get it to ride the rail. That's why I started with 1.5, had some wiggle so I wen...

BTW, to get optimal performance you actually want the DFW to have the opposite cant that you have. (Top out, bottom in) You want the bottom center of the wheel to touch the center rail. It will touch with close to "rolling in the direction of travel on a flat surface" at the contact point...

Hey Dan, you better get a patent on that! Nice setup, especially for the derby domes. I'm not much of a woodworking guy, although I do love it, I just kind of throw boards together. Was talking to one of my friends I went to High School with, told him I was doing Office Education classes when everyo...

The sportsmanship award is a tough call. All scouts should portray good sportsmanship, there shouldn't really be an award for it. I have done this in the past with my karate school and finally realized that, who really has the right to say someone has better sportsmanship than another? It's a very b...

That is awesome. I too am jealous, and have many questions......Is that an open race? How often do they run? I think my son would love to see his car in action on a track like that. Were you rail riding? ...... I think your velcro idea might be the ticket... Very, very cool. This is an open race, a...

Not too hard to figure out the simple name I made up.

But my son and I always built our cars for speed, never tried for the best of show too much, thus derbyspeed was fitting. I also decided to build a website which I used the name for.

In anticipation of a possible "no" answer I have searched around here looking for info on a 4-wheel RR setup, but really haven't found much other than what to do with the non-dominant front wheel, or Stan running some tests on an over-sized bore "floating" wheel. Maybe my seach ...

gpraceman wrote:

derbyspeed wrote:I like the driver shifting gears but not sure what it expresses?

Maybe a car speeding down the race track...

I suppose you could call it "Changing the subject" (shifting gears) - it's a stretch??

The soap box one is too funneee. I like the driver shifting gears but not sure what it expresses?

Probably the most frustrating part was that if you were at the end of the track you couldn't see the starting gate and could never tell when cars were racing. The walkway above blocked your view. Very hard to video tape and plus you had a very tough time telling which lane your car was in because th...

The car that took first place was a full bodied speed racer car, covering the wheels. I am pretty sure he had some lightened wheels, but I now know why he had a full bodied car, it was able to take the hits without getting to the wheels as easy. You mentioned a 2-story plunge, one car actually came ...

We had the pleasure of going to the Indiana State Museum last weekend and raced 3 cars on their 120 foot pinewood derby track. It is quite a setup. The track is murder on your cars, mostly due to the high speeds and stopping area. We did fairly well although our first two cars were run together and ...