Derby Talk

I've tried pure powdered Moly disulfide and it's not as good as graphite. I've got a whole canister to sell!
However, rub it on the wheels and they look FANTASTIC.

We raced 10 oz cars last year. In testing, we gained roughly (and I do mean roughly) .01 sec. for each added ounce. A 10 oz car was definitely faster than 8 oz. We had modified axles though. If you are using the slots, could be something to 8 oz. But if you have good solid and rigid axles, 10 oz is ...

Very nice job...Steve Irwin would have been proud!

No alignment issues. The car goes to the rail and stays there. Did you carve that croc out of wood?

PWD, yes, for a car with 4 wheels it gives us about .005 sec. on our wooden 28 foot track. I suspect it works a bit better where the tread has been "thinned" (wheels lightened) because it reduces the flexibility (and assumedly the vibration) of the thinned plastic.

Stan, that's a sliver of 3/16" black foam core inserted into the wheel to reduce vibration and increase aerodynamic efficiency. It'll get you about 1/2 -3/4" on a 4 wheel car. They weigh less than .1 gram each. The back wheel doesn't have one because there are tungsten cubes extending into...

Photos of inline 2-wheeler that won our open division.

I think you have a rear wheel problem, either alignment or bad wheel(s). Both wheels and alignment need to be very good if you are going to cant the wheels as the slightest perturbation will cause problems. The front wheel also needs to be very good because the right amount of adjustment sometimes c...

I don't have aftermarket wheels but I worked these wheels as hard as I could to get the tread FLAT, it's absolutely essential. We raced the cars Saturday and took 1st and 2nd in the Open Division on a rough old wooden 32' track. The two-wheeler was first by about 3 or 4 inches over my 3-wheeler, and...

Teeman, I put all the weight at or below the axle plane, but it still requires going low on the right rear of the car with tungsten in order to balance it. Low as in 1/8" above track. Still has the required 3/8" clearance on the rail side however. The wheels have to be flat of course, so I...

Teeman, your sim is right, getting the weight rearward is a problem. But it can be solved. I'm pretty certain I can get under 1 oz. on the front wheel for a 5 oz. car. This would require some tungsten plates on outside of rear wheel, sort of like fender skirts, and 3 plates horizontally mounted in t...

I will try to get some pictures this weekend. Darn thing is fun to play with and makes for some spectacular wrecks. Maddening to get balanced though.

I've modified my two-wheeler from last year, and it will be entered in our open division on Saturday. It is an in-line design, sort of a motorcycle(both wheels on the same side). It has about 1.3 oz. on the front wheel, but then our open division allows 7 oz. of weight, most other rules the same as ...

Stan, a brand new tube of graphite is better than last year's stuff. Graphite absorbs water -- at least I weighed a batch of old graphite, then baked it, weighed it again, and it had lost weight. Maybe that's why new stuff works better I don't know. But it does work better on my track. Slow Steve, t...

Slow Steve, A logical argument that is very well stated and reasoned. Your analysis of the COM position vs. track length is insightful. For a couple years we have canted the back wheels, but have run the front railrider wheel flat with toe-in. I couldn't necessarily PROVE that the cant is faster in ...