church race rules

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davet
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church race rules

Post by davet »

Hi guys,
We've raced scout races but never were involved in operating a race from start to finish. My church asked me what it would take to have a derby event for neighborhood kids and members. I figure one night a week for 4 weeks to build the cars and then a Sat race.

We've been racing under NorthernStar Council rules which allow lots of mods and super fast cars are possible. I would like to know what kind of rules should we use that are simple so the cars are able to be built at church. We won't have people bringing them home to work on, all done at church. I'll have some guys from my church helping and probably some parents also. None of the guys from my church have derby car experience so I plan on a one evening "training" session for them so they can be of more help to the kids. I plan to use oil for cleanliness and ease of use.

Are there rules already out there somewhere that would work for us?

I've read many posts on putting on workshops but these cars won't be speedy. Any other advice?
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Vitamin K
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Re: church race rules

Post by Vitamin K »

It was once suggested to me that a "community race" ruleset should allow wheels from BSA, Awana and Pinecar, so that people could run any kind of kit they happened to own.

Not sure about how you'd do inspections for that, though.
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davet
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Re: church race rules

Post by davet »

I think we'll be providing BSA kits and will have extra BSA wheels and axles on hand for kids to choose from.
I'm thinking rules like:
1) Maximum length 7" long
2) Maximum width 2 3/4" wide
3) Maximum height 4"
4) Must use stock kit wheels, block and axles as provided
5) No reshaping of tread surface, (must be flat).
6) Filing, polishing, bending axles permitted
7) 5 oz weight limit
8. lubricant limited to oil provided
9) Front wheels must be directly across from each other and rear wheels must be directly across from each other
10) Cars must be built and tuned at church during the workshops and cars stay at church
11) Minimum wheelbase of 4"
12) Minimum clearance beneath car of 3/8" (if it rolls on test section, it runs)

What problems do u see with these rules?
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Re: church race rules

Post by Speedster »

I don't see any problems with the rules except I would not allow the axles to be bent. I'll tell you why later. A skilled builder might do it anyway and it may be hard to detect but so be it.

Here's the way to get it done, have fun, and have a wonderful race. These cars are going to be fast which isn't really the most important thing in this race. One of the problems you're going to have is getting everybody together that many times.

OK, Here we go.
Buy Item #H57, Slim SSW (Slotted Stock Wheelbase) from Hodges Hobby House.
Buy Item H 16, 3/8" x 5.75" lead rod from Hodges Hobby House. $1.75 per rod.
Buy Item 5460 MV wheels and axles, bulk packed, 1 dozen sets, $23.40 from Maximum Velocity ($1.95 ea. set)
Weight cars and get COM same on all cars as close as possible. Use automotive body filler to fill holes. It will dry very quickly.
Buy 6 rolls of color duct tape from Walmart. Don't go to Pat Cataan. Special decorative duct tape can be purchased by the builder if they so choose. Have cutting boards and cut duct tape width to 1 1/2" for each car.
Have a paint night and decorating night. Have people paint the sides and then over the top with flat black paint about 1/4". Distance is not critical. Force dry the water base paint with hair dryers , apply the duct tape and get the people decorating the car which is what they want to do anyways. If you don't want to paint the black, use black electrical tape. The duct tape will then have a flat, straight surface and will lay down quickly. If someone wants to try to cover the whole car with the duct tape, let them do it. They can use multiple colors if they choose. When the cars are decorated you won't pay attention that they are all wedges.

You won't need bandsaws. A lot of drill presses would be nice. Spread the axle slots and then push the nails in with a drill press and use a notched credit car for clearance.

Here's the BIG benefit to doing this for the kind of race you are going to run. If you are racing on a quality track, every race is going to be very, very close. That is exciting !!!! The youngsters had fun because their participation was all in the fun stuff. No standing in a long line waiting for their car to be cut. It also will relieve any worker you might be able to get. Anyone can learn quickly how to get a COM with lead. Lead is soft, dense, and cuts with sidecuts, pruning shears, tin snips, hacksaws, etc. No special tools needed. Things can be adjusted to suit your situation. Everyone has fun. It worked for me and I think it will work for you. You'll save a whole lot of physical labor. Give it a try and see what kind of feedback you get.
Cheers
Bill
Keep the stock wheelbase.
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davet
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Re: church race rules

Post by davet »

Good ideas Speedster. I was thinking bent nails because I knew if they at least had some steer they would not death wobble and all would at least make it to the timer. Also we could have a few tuning boards and let the kids play with twisting nails for steer. Then kids could decide how much steer they want. I like your point about keeping them all pretty close in speed. Didn't think of that.

I was going to check on price of bulk under-car weights that you can break sections off of. Kids could put them on top or bottom. Bulk washers and bolts mixed in with whatever figurines they want from home I thought would cover the weight needs.

I don't think my church will want the kids working with lead.

I've never built a car with stock wheelbase. How much weight can be put behind the rear axle without being a problem?

Good idea about the duct tape. Kids can do wonders mixing and matching.
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Re: church race rules

Post by davet »

I looked at that H57 block you mentioned. Very good idea. Could I pre-cut some 1 3/4" lengths of 3/8 threaded rod or steel rod to use in place of the lead?
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Re: church race rules

Post by whodathunkit »

Kid's thoroughly enjoy the derby and many parents love it more then the kids!

So with that .. why not right a rule for the adults some thing like!
Number one rule:
If in doubt as to what you can do to your car, a general rule to follow is to do only what the majority of builders will do.
change only the shape, color, weight and distribution of the weight.

Last rule:
of building a derby car is do not do anything to your car that the majority of builders/racers do not do!
What type of automobile can be spelled the same forwards & backwards?
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Re: church race rules

Post by Speedster »

I knew you guys would come up with good ideas.
The general rule is 1 1/2 ounces behind the rear axle slot for a stock wheelbase car but I know some have gone for 2 ounces. If memory serves me, you cannot get 1 1/2 ounces behind the rear axle slot with lead with this wedge. It's not dense enough. I think it's closer to 1.02 ounces. I did all the weighting of the cars when we raced our 24 kids but I like the idea of having the racers do it if you can get them all together. If you make a sample board with different sizes of the steel rod and then have a chop saw at your disposable it should go fairly fast. It would give the racers a chance to use their math skills. Lead is nice because it's easy to cut. You might consider having the scout sit next to an adult and do the math on how much more weight is needed and let the adult handle the lead. The lead will be dense enough to use only the 3 holes and get a decent COM. If you build a test car it will answer a lot of your questions and you can decide from there.
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Re: church race rules

Post by Speedster »

I cut the duct tape down to 1 1/2" of width on a cutting board. That left a black stripe down the top of the car on each side of the tape. I felt it gave the car a personality. There was no special reason, it was just something I decided to do. If you decide to do this I'd like to see pictures of the cars if you can provide that.
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Re: church race rules

Post by davet »

Thanks guys. I appreciate the passing forward of experience.

Going down to see the author of our NSC rules tomorrow night at his derby workshop. Awesome place. We were there once last year and I saw moms, dads, grandparents and big brothers working with scouts building and tuning cars on his tracks. Some dads still in office clothes.
I giggled a little inside as people walked by us alongside the track. We had our 2 scales out as we moved weight fore and aft and side to side then writing down the weight on each rear wheel along with the steer amount, DFW weight then the time from the run. The first run was the fastest of the day and people started watching our runs and paying less attention to their own. My son said, "Dad, some are coming over and looking at our sheet." He thought it was a bad idea since we may be racing some of them at some point.

It'll be nice to build more basic cars for the church race.
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Re: church race rules

Post by Speedster »

duvet, I've never done that type of testing but it sounds like a good idea. How many .000 of a second have you ever gained or lost doing that type testing ? If you reached a certain high speed at a certain setting were you always able to regain it?
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Re: church race rules

Post by davet »

Speedster wrote:duvet, I've never done that type of testing but it sounds like a good idea. How many .000 of a second have you ever gained or lost doing that type testing ? If you reached a certain high speed at a certain setting were you always able to regain it?
It was our first and only time doing that. We ran probably 30 runs on a single lane track. We were unable to get consistent time even without making a change. We would see a 2.941 then next run no changes would be a 2.970. My son was staging the car and it wasn't until about half way thru that we realized that the staging was a problem for us. We tried to replicate staging later but it was difficult. We're just too inexperienced to make this kind of testing beneficial.

What we were able to determine pretty well was our steer. No changes to weighting and just steer changes yielded enough difference either way to know that more than 4" was slowing us down and less than 3" was slowing us down. We set it at 3.5" for our race.

Something else it uncovered for us was bad aftermarket, pre-polished axles. This would be his last race in scouts so we went all out with pre-polished axles and aftermarket wheels (we prepped the wheels though).This tuning session was in prep for Council and prior to that we ran stock parts. The next night (night before Council race) we took the wheels and axles out to reprep. All three touching wheels had very badly gouged bores. They were immaculate when installed for testing. We ended up pirating 2 axles and wheels from previous year's car and sanding and polishing one of the bad axles. Never had that gouging occur with our homemade axles. That was a hectic night.
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Re: church race rules

Post by Darin McGrew »

davet wrote:4) Must use stock kit wheels, block and axles as provided
Does shaping the block violate the "as provided" rule? Or is this really just a "must use the wheels, block, and axles provided in the kit" rule?
davet wrote:8. lubricant limited to oil provided
Be sure to provide a good oil for derby cars (e.g., Krytox). If you provide an inferior oil, it will cause practical problems (cars moving slowly, perhaps not finishing), and it will cause political problems (parents upset their kids have to use inferior oil). We don't restrict lubricants, but we provide only Krytox, and won't register a car that makes a mess until the problem is fixed.
davet wrote:9) Front wheels must be directly across from each other and rear wheels must be directly across from each other
Is there a particular reason for this rule? The reason I ask is that I once built a "wrecked car" derby car that used misaligned axles for artistic effect.
davet wrote:10) Cars must be built and tuned at church during the workshops and cars stay at church
Some families will not be able to come to all the workshops. They may drop out of the derby if they can't take the kits home to work on them.

Also, some kids do a lot better sanding their car for 5 minutes a day for a week, than sanding their car for 30 minutes at a workshop.

Finally, 4 evening workshops seems like it might be barely enough. My experience is that evening workshops are rushed, and we didn't get much workshop time for the kids relative to the setup and cleanup time. Saturday morning workshops are less rushed. There is more workshop time relative to the setup and cleanup time. And if some families show up from 9-10am, other families show up from 10-11am, and other families show up from 11am-noon, then the demand for tools is spread out over the course of the workshop.
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Re: church race rules

Post by davet »

Good points Darin McGrew.
1) I should leave out the "as provided" to clear this up.
2) I'm providing Nyoil II because it's a fraction of the cost of Krytox and church is paying for everything. We took 7th place at NorthernStar Council 3 yrs
ago running Nyoil and all stock parts so I'm guessing we won't get stuck in the middle of the track. No graphite because I don't want the added cleanup and
don't want kids rubbing their eyes with dirty hands.
3) I thought keeping the wheels directly across from each other would prevent a car with a funky wheel layout from flipping out of it's lane.
4) I want to keep the cars at church so that some adult at home doesn't do some fancy lightening up of the car or other mods not available to everyone.
5) The number of hours we should provide for building is causing me some angst. To save time I was thinking of rough cutting all of the blocks into
approximately 6 different shapes with maybe 3 blocks cut diagonally to give us 6 wedges. I'm trying to keep costs down for the church and the big tools
needed to a minimum.
-Our goal at this event is to give the neighborhood kids a chance to work together on a project with an adult at our church. It's not really an event designed
to see who can create the fastest car by any means possible.
-I like the idea of a providing enough work days for kids to be able to miss a day but still get it done. I'm thinking I'll have lots of help from the church members but maybe not every day.
- Keep the ideas coming because I've never done this before. I know you, Darin and Speedster and have done this before so I like the feedback.
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Re: church race rules

Post by Darin McGrew »

davet wrote:3) I thought keeping the wheels directly across from each other would prevent a car with a funky wheel layout from flipping out of it's lane.
I think it would have to be a pretty extreme configuration before the car would flip out of it's lane.

We deal with such things with a general rule that the car must fit the track without interfering with the other cars, with the start gate, or with the finish gate. We include a number of specifics (minimum clearance, maximum height, etc.), but those are not rules. Those are guidelines for meeting the "fit the track" rule.
davet wrote:4) I want to keep the cars at church so that some adult at home doesn't do some fancy lightening up of the car or other mods not available to everyone.
We've held All Comers races, which have allowed some of the more hands-on parents to build their own car alongside their kids, rather than taking over their kids' cars.

As for specific modifications, some we ban completely (e.g., no reshaping the wheels) and some we make available to everyone (e.g., drill presses at workshops to press axle holes).
davet wrote:5) The number of hours we should provide for building is causing me some angst. To save time I was thinking of rough cutting all of the blocks into
approximately 6 different shapes with maybe 3 blocks cut diagonally to give us 6 wedges. I'm trying to keep costs down for the church and the big tools
needed to a minimum.
We've provided precut blocks to younger kids (2nd grade and under), but we provide blank generic blocks to everyone else. Even so, some of the younger kids have wanted to do something different from the precut blocks we provided. Some removed pieces of the precut blocks. Some added a lot of "decorations" to the precut blocks. Some did both.

It's just something to be prepared for.

And at our workshops, the bottlenecks seemed to be the bandsaws (because an adult has to do it), the molten weight (because an adult has to do it), and the lube station (because it's the last step before registration and weigh in). The spray paint booths go quickly, but then you've got to have room for lots of cars to dry before the kids can apply the next coat, and you need room for all the cars to dry when they're done.
davet wrote:-Our goal at this event is to give the neighborhood kids a chance to work together on a project with an adult at our church. It's not really an event designed
to see who can create the fastest car by any means possible.
Bravo!
davet wrote:-I like the idea of a providing enough work days for kids to be able to miss a day but still get it done. I'm thinking I'll have lots of help from the church members but maybe not every day.
It helps if there is someone at every workshop who is a recognized "expert", who is available to answer questions and make sure everyone is headed more or less in the right direction. But the rest of the staffing can be flexible. We have a signup for various jobs at the workshops, and at the derby itself.
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