Derby Talk

Sorry, my last post might be confusing. We checked the rear wheel alignment with the orginal axles still in the car. We do not have access to a track to race off two cars. I was not real happy with how his axles turned out this year and had already made notes for improvement for next year. He realiz...

Thanks for everyone's expertise. After the son filed off the burr and crimp marks on a new set of axles this evening, we got a thumb tack and the tuning board out. The rears did cause the car to drift in the opposite direction. I guess that might explain why it took the full 1.5* to get some nice dr...

FS-- We have a tuning board. He did a good job with the drift and keeping the rears off of the 8' test rail. If I recall one of the rear wheels did not migrate to the axle head as fast or as deliberate as the other wheel or as quick as last years car. I'll have him double check it tonight. I also li...

Just had the Pack races on a 48’ Piantedosi aluminum track. This is my son’s third year building a car and second year rail riding with 3 wheels touching. I watched a few of the heats from behind the finish line and noticed a slight wobble in his car. It was not the “Death Wobble,” but about 2 or 3 ...

Man, what a painfully slow way to run a race! :doh: Always having to wait for cars returning from the finish line to run in the next heat. That is exactly what we thought. We felt they could have been staging the next heat as the heat before was being ran. Racing was supposed to start at 9:30am but...

Thanks for everyones responses and fixing the photo. One thing I forgot to mention is the reason I included the photo. The "bad joint" was the first one. Lane one and 2 were the worst. (right next to the white shoe in the photo.) Does it look like the rail in lane one at the end of the fir...

Each car was supposed to run 6 heats, one in each lane, starting in lane 6 and working their way to lane one, all six heats in a row. My sons car ran eight heats. On the 6th heat (f) for him when he was in lane one, the car in lane 2 jumped and I think hit my sons car and must have thrown the rt fro...

In case the photo did not show, here is another attempt (I'm new at this too!)

This year at districts (the first for my Tiger) the average times were about 0.25 slower than previous years. It is a 48' six lane alumium track. I'm not sure of the brand, maybe the one that starts with a "P"? I think they said it was six years old. In previous years the best cars ran in ...

Thanks everyone for your input and discussion. I read the RR threads and feel I have a good understanding of it now, but did not have time to work into our car for the pack race. On our test track the car seemed to have a tendency to a slight pull to the left, so maybe it was a natural rail rider. I...

pwrd by tungsten wrote:Make sure when you are moving the COM back that you keep the weight as concentrated as possible...

I understand having the weight as far back as possible to increase potential energy (but not too far to lose stability.) What is the reason to keep the weight as concentrated as possible?

Sorry about not being clear. I've read on several posts about narrowing the width of the block on the dfw area 1/16" so the rear wheels stay off the rail. Are you saying a good option is to leave larger gaps in the rear axles? From what I have seen, I think a normal gap is around 1/32". sh...

Our rules state "The inside wheel-to-wheel width should not be less than 1 3/4 (1.75) inches." What is the best or easiest way to RR with this rule? The width of the block is already about 1/32 too narrow, which I'm guessing a few coats of paint will get it to within the margin. There is n...

Thanks for all the great feedback. I'll definitely be reading the RR posts to better understand and learn how to do it. Looks like I was not clear on the wheels and "bad" was not a good word. The testing I meant was what I saw posted by FatSebastian and Ten Thumb Tom. Mold #14 may not be a...

My tiger cub son is about 1/2 done building his car and I found this forum with a lot of great information and contributors. Thanks everyone for sharing. So far he has done about 95% of the building, shaping and sanding himself with all hand tools. I let him use the drill press for drilling the hole...