The Big Day

General topics of interest to racers and race coordinators alike.
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Darin McGrew
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Re: The Big Day

Post by Darin McGrew »

S1C EM wrote:All heats but one seemed reasonably close. One of them had all four cars with times in the 1.2 second range and it shocked me that no one said anything about it.
Yep. That's the risk with time-only races.

My concern isn't with the extreme variations like this, where a single race had times that were obviously wrong. My concern is with more subtle shifts that affect the results in a systematic way. For example, if half the cars have raced 4 times, and half have raced 5 times, and then something changes that makes the races take an extra .1 second, then the cars that have already raced 5 times will be at a disadvantage, because they will have one fewer race with an extra .1 second.
ZebsRacing
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Re: The Big Day

Post by ZebsRacing »

Why in the world do they do cumulative times, my gripe with that is if your going to do it that way, run each car at least twice down each lane, and each car the equal amount of times. Period.
S1C EM
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Re: The Big Day

Post by S1C EM »

I'm guessing time is a factor. All cars going down all lanes once should still be pretty even.
ZebsRacing
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Re: The Big Day

Post by ZebsRacing »

Maybe it would be fair if its on a newer track but those old ones, ive read plenty about track bias.
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Darin McGrew
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Re: The Big Day

Post by Darin McGrew »

ZebsRacing wrote:Maybe it would be fair if its on a newer track but those old ones, ive read plenty about track bias.
There shouldn't be any unfairness caused by track bias if each car races the same number of times in each lane, even if each car races only once in each lane.

And my take is that yes, the motivation is efficiency. Racing everyone once in each lane requires as many races as you have cars. With a points-based system, you're going to need a lot more races than that.
titanNV
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Re: The Big Day

Post by titanNV »

Ours are strictly time based. Doesn't matter what car finished in what order during a heat. If looking for the fastest car, it couldn't be any other way than racing the clock.
I believe we race on a 35' Best Track, but I'm not 100% sure.
Last year (our first year) our car was faster than this year. Still my oldest son's car took 1st from his den, by 0.003 seconds! lol
Last year his older car took 1st in the pack, even after gluing the axle in the slot after a crash (brake didn't stop it!)
Crazylegsiraq
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Re: The Big Day

Post by Crazylegsiraq »

Ok Speedster! Must've had a stroke of good luck! My wife and I were so busy last week preparing for our oldest boys Confirmation Mass that I didn't get time to finish prepping the wheels with my scout. Saturday was hot laps, inspection and garage lock down. Forgot all about it until about an hour before they were to close!

I just pushed the axles in, spaced em as good as I could with a credit card, and we showed up with about 20 minutes to spare. I had time to show Mav how to place the car on the track as I thought he should and let him run it a couple of times and I turned the RR axle as I saw fit. It ran about a 2.33 something and one of the dads said that will have a rough time competing with the others. Another Dad laughed and said it'll really have a rough time if you don't put that wheel back in the axle slot! We were a soup sandwich! He takes the car and looked at it and asked profoundly... So would you like to put some graphite on this?

WOW! What a mess! I said that'll probably help and readjusted the axles finally locking them with a spot of glue to hold them in place. Waited a couple minutes and puffed some graphite(molly blend) they had at a living table into the bores and had Mav run it a couple more times down the track. They were somewhat shocked as was I when the timer read 2.281. I asked if that was more like the other boys and they said that ought to be about the middle of the pack. Good enough for me given the current events and lack of prep. I just wanted my boy to compete. He kinda lost interest during sand and paint so he did some design/shaping, axle/wheel prep (which I forgot to finish), and pretty much left the rest to me.

So on race day, my wife and I were to be at church while thankfully a family friend went to the race to cheer Maverick on. So after Mass concluded I check my phone that had all of these updates from our friend, and he had one last race so I tried to get there on time and failed. Everyone was leaving as I was getting there. I get to the entry steps of the building and I see my boy coming up the stairs with his car in one hand and a big, 2nd place over all trophy in the other! I couldn't believe after all of the last second haste, he ended up doing that well. The look on his face was priceless. Gleaming ear to ear he said Dad, we got district in a couple weeks! Thanks again to all that gave advice. It appears to have worked well even though we squeezed some of the most important stuff in at the last second.
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