Derby Talk

I am pleased that people like the photo, however, the photo is copyrighted and cannot be used without permission. Generally, I grant permission for non-commercial use as long as the copyright and website information is maintained.

My apologies as well, I should have check with MaxV first.

The problem we had is we had five cars with the Pro Ultra Light Speed Wheels (1.0 grams) and at least one car with the Ultralight speed wheels (2.2 grams). It was very easy to see the 1.0 grams wheels and easy to me to see the 2.2 gram wheels. I cannot visually tell the difference between 3.6 and 3....

Stan, I guess you could come up with some sort of jig that would hold the car off the scales while letting the wheels hang since there is a little slack between the wheels and the axles. But since everyone has puts the axles in the slots (we have to use the slots) at a different hight it would have ...

Our district it good about communicating with the packs with the rules ahead of time. The district rules also say it is up to each pack to come up with a set of rules but if they advance anyone to the district then they must abide by the district rules. So they strongly suggest each pack adopts the ...

I was thinking of a more definitive tool. Either pass or no-pass. You obviously can’t weigh the wheels once they are put on the car. A caliper would be fine but a good one would cost a lot of money – but a simple piece of metal (maybe aluminum) with a pre-cut slot in it could be sold very inexpensiv...

Our rules are very specific when it comes to wheel modification. I’ve seen several vendors have 3.3 gram wheels, 2.2 and 1.0 gram wheels (the standard BSA wheels are 3.6 grams). Our rules state you can do some light sanding to remove the mold mark but you may not remove any significant amount of mat...

We had our district race this past weekend. I was disappointed in how many parents tried to cheat to get their son to win. By my estimation 10-15% or more tried to violate the rules. I can understand being over the weight limit since a lot of scales are different and I’m not talking about the five o...

The thing I noticed was there were several boys jumping over the track just before the cars were released.

Noted that at least the t-test required assumption that the populations had "normal distribution". Does limiting the sampling to "faster cars" provide such a distribution. My observations of car times is that they do not satisfy the definition. Is there a test that can be applie...

The way to do this assuming normality is to put the data in a regression model along with a variable that would identify each car. Using all the data available should increase the accuracy (power) of your model. But you have to realize different cars my act different in each lane. For example, you m...

I understand about rolling vs sliding down the track...But would you want to polish the inside edge of each wheel or at least the dominate wheel if you have a 3-wheel rail rider? This would be the part that touches the guide strip.

I use the other end of a drill bit. I have a dedicated drill bit that I prepared the same way I prepare the axles all the way down to polishing with Mothers. I touch up the drill bit between reaming with mothers so nothing accumulates on it. You want to be sure you don't introduce scratches to the b...

Our rules state "The car must have 1 ¾” clearance between the wheels". So I think as long as you have enough play in the wheels a 1/16 of an inch would pass. The confusion might be that rules don't say where the clearance is measured at (between the hubs or edges of the wheels). I know the...

I wonder if placing weights below the axle plane moves the COM below the axle plane. You have to consider the rest of the car. The only way to test this is to balance the car on the side (the same way you would balance car to determine the COM in relation from front to back of the car). I haven’t se...

Hi, I noticed a new wheel in the BSA catalogue. This one makes a siren noise when a button is pressed. Can these wheels be used as a normal wheel or are they only ornamentation that can be added to the car as a fifth wheel? http://www.scoutstuff.org/BSASupply/ItemDetail.aspx?ctlg=05NDC&ctgy=PROD...