Car Number

General topics of interest to racers and race coordinators alike.
dna1990
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Re: Car Number

Post by dna1990 »

May be related to the discussion - but does anyone have good success with putting numbers on the cars - where it is readable in both directions?

For example, when looking at the car from the front - the ususal way for judging, organizing in the pit, transferring to the track, etc.

But also from the rear, so that after it is placed on the track - the track manager can read back the numbers and verify lane assignment for that race.

Our guy now has to 'lean' over the track and face the cars to read back the numbers.

We thought about two stickers - but so many cars have a design that still make that difficult.
We thought about dual numbers on the same sticker, one inverted - but we already have that templete made and we'd like to keep the sticker size small if possible.

Any ideas?
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gpraceman
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Re: Car Number

Post by gpraceman »

dna1990 wrote:For example, when looking at the car from the front - the ususal way for judging, organizing in the pit, transferring to the track, etc.

But also from the rear, so that after it is placed on the track - the track manager can read back the numbers and verify lane assignment for that race.

Our guy now has to 'lean' over the track and face the cars to read back the numbers.
You can run with two people at the start gate. One brings the cars over in the car carrying tray and helps load the cars, and the other person verifies they are in the correct lane and trips the gate.

Even if the kids load their own cars, I like having that second person bring the cars over in the car tray and then the kids take from the tray and load to the track. At the staging table the cars are put into the tray in the correct lane order (trays are color coded the same as the track). That is another way to help ensure they get loaded onto the correct lane.
Randy Lisano
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Awana Grand Prix and Pinewood Derby racing - Where a child, an adult and a small block of wood combine for a lot of fun and memories.
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ohiofitter
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Re: Car Number

Post by ohiofitter »

3 Cub Dad wrote:
ohiofitter wrote: This is what I like let the kids choose.but the whole purpose of our number is for lane identification......the gentleman's a electrical engineer ...........and when it comes to the track.....there's always a big confusion on what lane is what lane
LOL!!!!

That's why I put big lane numbers at both ends of all the lanes last year!

You would think someone would do this.............I am getting the track at the end of January.............And the first thing that's going to be done is mark the sensors as well as the track to IDENTIFY EACH LANE
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pack529holycross
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Re: Car Number

Post by pack529holycross »

We ignore numbers added to the car for the purpose of design, and use colored "daydot" stickers you can buy just about anywhere-

we use a single color per racing class ( tiger, wolf, bear, webelos, sibling, adult )


When I had to adhoc the District race with no software last year, I came up with a simple numbering system:
we use a numerical system T1, T2, T3 for tigers, W1, W2, W3 for wolves, B1, B2, B3 for Bears, WE1-etc for Webeols, S1-etc for Siblings, and A1-etc for adults.

The stickers went on the front of the cars, and I assigned a "stager" to use the race schedule to stage up each group of cars,give them to the starter, and then confirm that they were in the correct lanes.


For our Pack Event last year, we put the stickers on the bottom of the cars, to not show during racing or detract from photography of the event.

Nicholas
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Darin McGrew
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Re: Car Number

Post by Darin McGrew »

We also ignore any numbers that are part of the cars design. We place a small sticker with the car's race number on the front (although we have to get creative with the placement of the sticker for some car designs). The cars are numbered 101, 102, 103,... in the youngest division; 201, 202, 203,... in the next division; and so on.
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pack529holycross
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Re: Car Number

Post by pack529holycross »

Darin McGrew wrote:We also ignore any numbers that are part of the cars design. We place a small sticker with the car's race number on the front (although we have to get creative with the placement of the sticker for some car designs). The cars are numbered 101, 102, 103,... in the youngest division; 201, 202, 203,... in the next division; and so on.
I was struggling to remember how GPRM does the numbering - it is likely I had to do "hundreds" series to make the software work properly. Using the colors for each group really cut down on any errors as well.

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gpraceman
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Re: Car Number

Post by gpraceman »

pack529holycross wrote:I was struggling to remember how GPRM does the numbering - it is likely I had to do "hundreds" series to make the software work properly. Using the colors for each group really cut down on any errors as well.
With GPRM, car numbers need to be numerical (no letters or other non-numerical characters) and unique.
Randy Lisano
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Awana Grand Prix and Pinewood Derby racing - Where a child, an adult and a small block of wood combine for a lot of fun and memories.
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