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Pinewood Derby (Need Help)


PGH STEELERS

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  • 3 weeks later...
Me an my brother both raced these in scouts. My brother always had trucks and dad put the weight in the bed. I asked why and he said it took some weight off the front so it didnt dig in and it pushed the truck down the track. I used to be the line judge when I was in boy scouts for the ones in the mall, what I hated were the dads who didnt let their kids have any say. One guy wouldn't let the kid touch it.
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This one kids car cost over $1,000.00. That's were I lose respect. I do have some ideas and was thinking about buying one, but then that isn't what it's about, that's just me.

 

I did see something about if you can balance the car 3/4 from the back of the car, then this is idea weight? I need to find a place that has scales so that I can get this down to the act weight.

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couple years back when we did my son's car I had the most problems because of not being able to do any practice runs with it to see how the car went down the track. Getting the toe was a pain using the nails and I had my weight forward on it which is all wrong. I made a little ramp to send it down here at the house and I could never get it to track right and looking back I think it was mostly because the weight was forward and made the car really unstable on take off. You want that thing to run on a rail. The kids that won it out here were the sons of the troop leader who kept the track at his house.....imagine that. :D No big deal....son had fun making it so it served it's purpose. Still a little part of me though that would like another shot at it knowing what I know now. My son wanted out of scouts because it was pretty boring really.

 

http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj37/0rion_album/7resized.jpg

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  • 1 month later...
Well to finalize this thread, my son took first in his den, 2nd overall which was pretty impressive due to all of the kids. He won best scout theme design as well. Things to remember for next year. Longer wheel base and how to master the (3) wheel contact. I didn't do the (3) wheel contact because I was affraid the car won't drive straight. I will master those two things next year. The kid who won over all (which Josh gave him some competition), was the kid who's dad spent all kid of money last year. Yes, he won again this year. His wheel base was longer and did the (3) wheel contact. Over all it was fun, I had a bunch of fathers come up to me and say that Josh knocked off a lot of good people this year. One father was pretty pissed at me, but oh well, sucks for him.
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Daughter is going to be doing this for Indian Princesses…kits are being distributed next month. First time I'll be touching a Pinewood Derby kit in 20+ years.

 

Any other ideas, please feel free to share them. Is the "3-wheel contact" idea like the bacon car Randy posted above? Is that legal?

 

OP, congrats on your son's win! :thumbup:

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TooSweet had a good link. Here is another link to follow. This may sound stupid, but there are good books at the local library that I read and there are a lot of great ideas there.

 

http://www.pinewoodpro.com/pinewood-derby-howto-speed.htm

 

Thanks, Josh was very proud.

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Well to finalize this thread, my son took first in his den, 2nd overall which was pretty impressive due to all of the kids. He won best scout theme design as well. Things to remember for next year. Longer wheel base and how to master the (3) wheel contact. I didn't do the (3) wheel contact because I was affraid the car won't drive straight. I will master those two things next year. The kid who won over all (which Josh gave him some competition), was the kid who's dad spent all kid of money last year. Yes, he won again this year. His wheel base was longer and did the (3) wheel contact. Over all it was fun, I had a bunch of fathers come up to me and say that Josh knocked off a lot of good people this year. One father was pretty pissed at me, but oh well, sucks for him.

 

+1 for bacon car.

 

Why was another dad panty twisted?

 

Congrats to your boy. :thumbup:

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