What is a fast time for a stock car on a 35ft Besttrack??

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newbie2004
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What is a fast time for a stock car on a 35ft Besttrack??

Post by newbie2004 »

This is probably a question with a lot of variables, but for a stock cub car, what would you consider a fast time on a 35 ft besttrack? Last years car ran average 2.700 sec. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thank you :wall:
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Re: What is a fast time for a stock car on a 35ft Besttrack?

Post by BallBoy »

On a 35' BestTrack for a typical Cub Scout race 2.7 is a middle-of-the-pack car. Above average is 2.60 to 2.65. Competitive is in the 2.55 to 2.60 range. Better than 2.55 is a serious contender. For what it's worth, a 35' track has 3 flat sections with the timer at the end of the third section (42' has four flat sections).
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Re: What is a fast time for a stock car on a 35ft Besttrack?

Post by birddog »

One thing I've learned is that even when the same brand of track and same length of track is used, depending on how the track is setup will greatly impact your times. So, it becomes very difficult to compare times.

That said, I have a 35' single lane best track and my kids built about 5 cars so far this year and I tested them all on that track. All our cars are 3 wheel RR with stock wheel base (4 1/2"), COM varying from 1 1/16" to 5/8".

the test times we ran varied from about 2.680 as the slowest and 2.589 as the fastest. The 3 cars we took to the pack race all had consistent times at right about 2.600.

We don't have much competition at our Pack level, so all 3 of our cars took 1st place in their respective divisions (open kids, open adult and cub pack champ). All 3 of these cars beat the competition by about 0.1 seconds on a 42' besttrack. We'll learn how well we really did once we run at districts.

hope this helps,

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Re: What is a fast time for a stock car on a 35ft Besttrack?

Post by JSG »

My son averaged 2.58 - 2.60 last year on a 35' BestTrack. A lot depends on the track set up. Is the floor level etc. He ended up first in pack and second at districts. The boy he lost to in the finals was the same boy that he beat every time in the Web 2 races. The finals were on a different track (wooden) and he ended up second.
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Re: What is a fast time for a stock car on a 35ft Besttrack?

Post by DerbyDash »

JSG wrote:My son averaged 2.58 - 2.60 last year on a 35' BestTrack. A lot depends on the track set up. Is the floor level etc. He ended up first in pack and second at districts. The boy he lost to in the finals was the same boy that he beat every time in the Web 2 races. The finals were on a different track (wooden) and he ended up second.

That must have been disappointing for your son having beaten him before. Were the races close and did your son ever beat him in a race? My question to DT experts would be should a car that won before on one track expect to beat the other car on a different track if designed correctly? Having limited building experience and not knowing all the details, do you think that the type track was the difference or maybe additional work was done on the other car?
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Re: What is a fast time for a stock car on a 35ft Besttrack?

Post by Darin McGrew »

DerbyDash wrote:My question to DT experts would be should a car that won before on one track expect to beat the other car on a different track if designed correctly?
Different tracks can reward different designs. As an extreme example, consider Track A with rough joints on the left side of the guide rails, and Track B with rough joints on the right side of the guide rails. Car A is a railrider that follows the right side of the guide rail, and Car B is a railrider that follows the left side of the guide rail. In this case, Car A will do well on Track A, but not on Track B. And Car B will do well on Track B, but not on Track A.
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Re: What is a fast time for a stock car on a 35ft Besttrack?

Post by rpcarpe »

It could well be that additional work, or slightly better lube might have also contributed.
In the pamphlet I just picked up with some Coach's Lube, it leaves 4% of your cars performance to 'Luck'.
So we're not the only ones that cannot explain each and every performance variation.

If performance varied dramatically, we'd all suspect something. But this just sounds like good healthy rivalry between two great car building teams. Keep it up!
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Re: What is a fast time for a stock car on a 35ft Besttrack?

Post by birddog »

One other thing I noticed as I was testing on my 35' single lane besttrack this year. When cars would run 2.65 seconds or so, I had no problems on the stop section of the track. However, as we got better and tuning improved and we finally started getting runs at or below 2.600, many times those cars would not get stopped by the stop section and end up crashing at the end. This is not good for a well tuned car!

I decided to add another 7' section to turn my track into a 42' track so I don't have to worry about damaging cars on the stop section any longer. The only problem is, I suspect it will not be easy to set up such a long track, even in my fairly large basement. I've got one path that should work, but the freezer will be blocked while the track is up!

I have to admit though, the kids love testing the cars on the test track. I think it is their favorite part of the entire build process.

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Re: What is a fast time for a stock car on a 35ft Besttrack?

Post by JSG »

DerbyDash wrote:
JSG wrote:My son averaged 2.58 - 2.60 last year on a 35' BestTrack. A lot depends on the track set up. Is the floor level etc. He ended up first in pack and second at districts. The boy he lost to in the finals was the same boy that he beat every time in the Web 2 races. The finals were on a different track (wooden) and he ended up second.

That must have been disappointing for your son having beaten him before. Were the races close and did your son ever beat him in a race? My question to DT experts would be should a car that won before on one track expect to beat the other car on a different track if designed correctly? Having limited building experience and not knowing all the details, do you think that the type track was the difference or maybe additional work was done on the other car?
He was still happy to pull off a second place. I don't have the stats from the race but I remember my son won all his heat races in the Web 2 race. When they went into the finals the other boy won the overall by a narrow margin. It was really close. I remembered the other Dad from previous district races. He made it a point to come over by me and say he had calculated that his son would win the finals. He was right but kind of an odd thing to do. My son kind of set the bar in previous years winning 2nd and then 1st in the finals. There are many variables between tracks that probably contributed to it but that's racin'. Unfortunately our districts within our council are no longer going to have district races. They are encouraging packs to organize their own "Run-offs" with other packs. We'll be doing that with three other packs within our school district. Too bad :shake:
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Re: What is a fast time for a stock car on a 35ft Besttrack?

Post by TXDerbyDad »

JSG wrote: He was still happy to pull off a second place. I don't have the stats from the race but I remember my son won all his heat races in the Web 2 race. When they went into the finals the other boy won the overall by a narrow margin. It was really close. I remembered the other Dad from previous district races. He made it a point to come over by me and say he had calculated that his son would win the finals. He was right but kind of an odd thing to do. My son kind of set the bar in previous years winning 2nd and then 1st in the finals. There are many variables between tracks that probably contributed to it but that's racin'.
That's an odd thing to say, to say the least. Even if I thought my son(s) were going to win, I'd never have the temerity to say it to another parent or Scout, and would wait until the racing was over, but I realize some people also don't know how to behave themselves.

To get back to your original question, There's are certainly differences between tracks, and there's also no way to tell if the car you raced against in your Pack races was the same as the one that you raced in District. It could have been that the car was modified in some way between Pack and District, and there'd be no way to tell. My son's car between Pack and District races was completely different because his Pack car actually warped/cupped slightly from front to back, and while he took 2nd in the Pack race, he wanted to do better. And our rules say nothing about using the same car between Pack and District. So, we bought another kit and made him a new body based upon the design his younger brother and I used for our cars. We did reuse our axles and wheels, which worked flawlessly and he took first in district.
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Re: What is a fast time for a stock car on a 35ft Besttrack?

Post by xanthrum »

TxDerbyDad - you should try and race in this years (2014 - May 3rd) Mid America Pinewood Derby... http://www.midamericaderby.com - there is some awesome competition and it is focused entirely on Scouts. Many here participated last year and there are going to be some amazing new improvements for this next year.
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Re: What is a fast time for a stock car on a 35ft Besttrack?

Post by Speedster »

newbie, here is our experience. In our 2013 race our car first raced at District on a 35' Best track where the car traveled 29' 10" from start pin to timer. It was recording 2.60 and barely got beat by only one other car. It was fast enough to be one of the 8 fastest cars to move to a 40' Freedom track which is a circular arc track. When racing on the Freedom track, Josh beat everyone by about 10" and took 1st place. The circular arc track and longer distance favored our car which I suspect was due to wheel and axle prep. If you are required to use the slots at stock wheelbase and graphite then I would say a 2.60 is a very competitive time if you are traveling 29' 10" on a Best track.
Best of Luck to you and your team.
Last edited by Speedster on Sat Apr 14, 2018 4:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What is a fast time for a stock car on a 35ft Besttrack?

Post by TXDerbyDad »

xanthrum wrote:TxDerbyDad - you should try and race in this years (2014 - May 3rd) Mid America Pinewood Derby... http://www.midamericaderby.com - there is some awesome competition and it is focused entirely on Scouts. Many here participated last year and there are going to be some amazing new improvements for this next year.
That sounds like a good time, and a way to continue our derby addiction past our District races. :)
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Re: What is a fast time for a stock car on a 35ft Besttrack??

Post by MJThurston »

My kids best car is running 2.62 on a Derby Magic Test Track. 2.401 on a 32 foot track. Converts over to 2.62 on a 35 foot track but that is with zero speed lose.
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