My son and I just went though this and my beef is with the race format. My
son’s car was the fastest car based on time but he didn’t win a major
trophy because they use a point system based on race position instead of
time. My son’s car lost one close race against another fast car so it was
out of the running as far as points are concerned. There were 66 cars but
only 5 races with three lanes so each car only races 10 other cars. The
undefeated cars won trophies but they didn’t race against my sons car –
they only raced slower cars. The car that beat my sons won the third place
trophy but the combined time for my sons car beat the first place car by a
significant margin. My son’s car also had the first and second fastest
individual runs. I’m going to work the pack leaders next year to try to
refine the format so that the fastest car has a better chance of winning.
(does anyone know of any?)

We did win the “best paint job” certificate so I can tell you how to paint
it. The best part is that you can have your kid do as much as the work as
you or he wants to. We started with a spray can of sandable automotive
primer and put about 5 coats of primer on it and sanded between each coat
with steel wool. My son is a seven-year old so he was only good for about
15 minutes a day so this worked out well. He tended to dribble the paint a
little so we would sand of the dribbles with 220 paper. We bought a can of
lacquer spray paint for the finish coats and repeated the process with
multiple coats and steel wool. After about three coats it was done and we
left the final coat alone. The whole painting process took us about two
weeks to complete. The paint job is very shinny and smooth with no signs of
wood grain. Just about everyone who sees it seems to need to feel it to see
how smooth it is.

I can also give you a few tips on how to make your car fast. The slots have
to be aligned so the car goes straight - ours was aligned right out of the
box. You have to polish and lubricate your axles and wheels and you can
find directions on how to do this on the Internet. Our wheels would spin
for about 20 seconds when we were done. Perhaps the most important thing
besides making sure the car goes straight is to put the weight in the back
of the car. Remember that potential energy is equal to weight x height so
the higher up that weight is sitting on the ramp, the more potential energy
the car has. That extra potential energy is transferred to extra kinetic
energy on the flat section of the track. All of the finalists in this race
had their weight in the back. Another thing we did was to built the car to
be slightly overweight and then removed weight at the weigh in. Our entry
was exactly 5.00 ounces on the official scale.

Happy racing...

Scott


Mike Patterson wrote:

On Sun, 07 Mar 2004 04:15:00 GMT, (Dan
Valleskey) wrote:

snip
The dad's class turns out some pretty fancy stuff. The rules are.....
bent. Last year I got tromped by a guy that used wheels he turned off
a CNC lathe. Tall wheels. His frame was carbon fiber screwed to a
little bit of pine. He works for a race team here in Indy. His kid
had the winning car in the boys class. My wife asked his kid, how did
your car get such a nice paint job? He said, I don't know. Later I
heard the boy say he was not allowed to touch his car.

Sour grapes? Maybe a little, I came in second place with stock
wheels. And my kid lost to his kid.


This year, we are backing off a little, I am not building a car at
all, my kid is handling all body duties on his car, I will just handle
his axles and wheels.


Okay, maybe I need help!!!! But the boys will all have fun, anyway.

-Dan V.

snip

I remember when I was a Scout and some of the kid's dads would do that
stuff. My dad wouldn't help me out at all.

He said I would learn better that way.

He was right, I learned very well that some "men" who consider
themselves to be "good fathers" are in actuality selfish children who
are teaching their kids that the rules don't apply to "them".

After the second or third such race, I never did pinewood derby again.
Why waste the time?

Boy, I'm amazed at how ****ed off I am 30 years later...maybe I need a
shrink, or a few hours in the shop.

Got an idea for a tongue & groove headboard...

Mike Patterson
Please remove the spamtrap to email me.