Derby Talk

I'm trying to think in my head of what side of the car the dfw should be on due to an imperfection in the wood track that gets used at our local Pioneers. There is an imperfection in one of the lanes and when it shows its face, cars jump the track and always go off to right-hand side of the track. W...

I was wondering that myself. The flooring is probably just wide enough to accommodate two lanes, but it would add another $32 to the price due to the lattice strips I'm using. I'll have to discuss it with the wife and see if she'll let me burn a few more bucks lol.

I am not expecting it to be perfect, but I thought it would save a lot of work and be inexpensive at the same time. So, today I went to Menard's and purchased some items that I thought would work based on the very limited tools we have at home. When I say limited tools, I mean no table saw etc - jus...

Just figured for reference for anyone not familiar with the PineCar brand kits. Note- Pioneers removes the nails that comes with the kits so you are limited to just the metal axle rods. The length of the axle rods leave approximately one credit card width between the wheels and the block body (check...

Maybe i can offset the axle and have the excess axle rod on the raised side? On the dfw, would 1mm of gap between wheel and body be good or?

It appears I misinterpreted or took a different perspective when they said that the "Wheels must remain outside of original block width" under the rules for width. Also, I had misinterpreted the reason why the side gets shaved. It is a good thing to have the different opinions that you guy...

These are the rules we have to use and the relevant parts to rail riding are that the wheels have to stay outside of the original block width and that we can modify the wheels (we also have to use the metal axle rods). Generally, from what I have been reading with rail riding is that the DFW side of...

Tx guys

Ive just been batting around a couple ideas with the kids and we still have one more to ask when it comes the wheels, but I'll pose that later tonight. We basically have a few concepts we have been bouncing around to work within the pioneers rules.

Being as the Pioneers rules state that we can modify our wheels, is there a noticeable difference in how fast a car would get up to speed and how long it would retain the speed on the flat if the wheel were a smaller diameter? I'm just looking at it from the perspective of making the wheels lighter ...

I wouldnt of minded :) Does your friends family do lutheran pioneers also? Honestly have no idea. I just was asked since I do a lot with our pack for the pwd. The whole:" they know someone who may be able to help out". Ok, was just curious to see if he was and what district he was in :) Y...

I wouldnt of minded

Does your friends family do lutheran pioneers also?

I got a lot of great information here and even though I was not able to put all of it to use this year, the family had an excellent run of it. My seven year old, Manny took first in his train at the local level and then came up just short in district from qualifying for nationals. My nine year old, ...

Yea, I've seen a couple cars in the short amount of time my kids have been racing that have had the wheels flying off. I wish they let us use the nails that come with the kits; they seem like they are decent in quality with no burr marks and the crimp marks being far enough down the shaft to not nee...

[EDIT] To answer my own question, it never rubs up hard enough to cause a spin to begin with. However, because the rules my kid's cars have to play by state that the solid axle can't be cut, it does allow for the cap to fit a hair further in on the axles with the crimps further away from the ends. S...

I think I need to pull the axles off our test car and do new wheels over again. Although rail riding definitely did not hurt the car, my oldest kids straight runner is just as fast. I got to run all three of our cars against each other after the derby was over and it was literally neck and neck for ...