Derby Talk

After almost a year and a half of planning, haggling and procrastination (district DE) we are holding our first ever district event. The DE having never run an event has decided it should be an all comers. We have 32 packs in our district. Because I opened my big mouth after last years event, I have become the chair. My question, do you favor an all comers event or invitational? Please feel free to elaborate. Thanks in advance.

edit: Not all packs hold derbies. Eight packs would treat district as their sole derby. Primary reason DE went in this direction imo. While fair, it increases the size and cost of the event 10 fold. More tracks, volunteers, facility cost, labor ect. and a MUCH longer day.

We invite the top five Cub Scouts(Wolf/Bear/Webelos) and if the pack has 6 or more Tigers the top 3 Tigers, if the pack has 5 or fewer Tigers, all are invited.

I wonder how having night before/early morning races for the packs that didn't have their own derbies with the top moving on to the "district finalists" races would go over. . . .

doct1010 wrote:Not all packs hold derbies. Eight packs would treat district as their sole derby.

Small CSB Stockade units have used our regional Shape N Race Derby in much the same way. Rather than run their own derby for a half dozen or a dozen boys, they just show up at the regional derby.

Small CSB Stockade units have used our regional Shape N Race Derby in much the same way. Rather than run their own derby for a half dozen or a dozen boys, they just show up at the regional derby.

These are not small packs! I am told 3 of the 8 have 25 or more cubs, one of the 3 is over 50. It seems, historically they have never held a derby.

Our district invites the top 4 winners from each rank from each pack in the district. This gives the kids something to shoot for when racing at the pack level. From there the top 3 winners from each rank go on to the coucil race.

We go straight from Pack to Council (no Districts), and invite only the top 2 finishers in each age group (10 total per Pack).

Stan has been around the races quite awhile, and in other posts such as Totally different track at district race than normal tracks, he has made comments such as

Stan Pope wrote:I think that district and council events should be geared to serve as many scouts as possible. So, district/council derby participation criteria should be structured not to reward the best racers but to maximize participation. Contrary to intuition, participation does not maximize by allowing everyong to participate! Rather, it maximizes by being somewhat restrictive, such as top 3 or 4 per grade per pack!

This seems right to me, as on the one hand there is no sense of accomplishment in having qualified for a race for which the only accomplishment required is to build a car (as opposed to the accomplishment of having earned the chance to participate in District races through top Pack level performance), and on the other hand a per grade allowance of only 2 scouts per pack leaves too many scouts without the opportunity to experience the District event as full participants.

My 2 cents...

Go Bubba Go wrote:This seems right to me, as on the one hand there is no sense of accomplishment in having qualified for a race for which the only accomplishment required is to build a car (as opposed to the accomplishment of having earned the chance to participate in District races through top Pack level performance), and on the other hand a per grade allowance of only 2 scouts per pack leaves too many scouts without the opportunity to experience the District event as full participants.

I agree wholeheartedly Bubba. Intuitively I favor a limited number of invitees for several reasons, logistics near the top of the list. I laso realize this is an opportunity for some that comes around only once per year. I think we need to reward the hard-working cub/parent team, it seems an all comers format detracts a bit from that.

Our Pack is hosting the "2nd annual" District event this year . Last year (hosted by another pack) the invitation was the top 3 out of each division per pack, with 18 packs. It took forever to run about 150 kids with time slots set up for each division.

This year we are thinking of inviting the top racer per division per pack and then the packs top 3 overall (b/c top 3 could all be from 1 den). That's a possible 7 or less from every pack with a maximum possibility of 126 racers.

For the packs (I'm not sure if there are any) that don't have a derby we could possibly allow 1 joint effort car per division??? (Don't know how that would work with the trophies and patches and all, but just a thought) We're just now looking into how to handle Districts, I'm sure I'll have some posts of my own to pick everyone's brains.

CuriousGeorge wrote:Our Pack is hosting the "2nd annual" District event this year . Last year (hosted by another pack) the invitation was the top 3 out of each division per pack, with 18 packs. It took forever to run about 150 kids with time slots set up for each division.

...We're just now looking into how to handle Districts, I'm sure I'll have some posts of my own to pick everyone's brains.

If you care to start your own thread with questions, please note that my first 2 questions to you will be:
1) What scheduling method was being used (just curious, NOT an expert on this at all)
2) How many tracks were you using?

My "gut" is to look at these 2 questions (scheduling method and # of tracks) first as a solution to "speed up" the event before considering reducing the number of boys that will get to participate.

Our District invites the Top 3 from each rank in the Packs to the District race.

There were 15-25 in each rank and the races were on a 48' Piantedosi Freedom Aluminum 3 lane track.

I have been told that we will be using a 48' Piantedosi Freedom Aluminum 6 lane track this year!

Hopefully things will go smoothly like they did last year. Each rank had a time slot to be there and run in.

Lynn

My son won our Pack race and I was told that he would be the lone Scout to represent the Pack at District races. I don't know if that's what our District does or just what our Cubmaster thought they did. I will find out at our next District Roundtable meeting. There are 24 packs in our District.

PWD_addict wrote:My son won our Pack race and I was told that he would be the lone Scout to represent the Pack at District races. I don't know if that's what our District does or just what our Cubmaster thought they did. I will find out at our next District Roundtable meeting. There are 24 packs in our District.

Hmmm seems strange. Doesn't seem to be TOO large a district to accomodate more. This is the first I have heard, in several correspondence, of a lone scout from a pack being only invite. Good luck at district.

Our pack sends the the top 3 in each of the 6 age groups. Potentially 18 boys from our pack go. The district has 10 packs. A possible 180 boys racing. Last year they ran two tracks. One track did tiger,bobcat and wolves. The other track did the older boys. For our pack it seems to be just the right amount of boys going. 18 out of about a 100.

For our current district, each pack can send the top 2 from each rank. We have about 72 packs in the district.

Back when we were in San Diego, each pack could only send the fastest racer (yes, only one!). Though, that was a combined district and council race, so there was a huge number of racers with all of the districts represented. Personally, I'd rather see the district and council races separated. That gives more boys a chance to go to the next level.

We don't have a council race in the Denver area (yet), but I am putting a bug in a few ears. Our annual scout show would be a perfect time to do it.

doct1010 wrote:

PWD_addict wrote:My son won our Pack race and I was told that he would be the lone Scout to represent the Pack at District races. I don't know if that's what our District does or just what our Cubmaster thought they did. I will find out at our next District Roundtable meeting. There are 24 packs in our District.

Hmmm seems strange. Doesn't seem to be TOO large a district to accomodate more. This is the first I have heard, in several correspondence, of a lone scout from a pack being only invite. Good luck at district.

Thanks doct1010! Like I said, this is our first time and it's possible that more are invited and our Cubmaster doesn't know about it. 24 cars would make a very short District race. If I find out differently, I'll post it.