Derby Talk

Can anyone think of a reason why anyone would feel cheated? I don't see any real situation in which a someone would miss out on a pack trophy due to inviting more participants into the pack race. Well, maybe just one. Let's say, for instance, the bear den is dominant. The top 4 bears win all 4 pack ...

And don't get me wrong - I'm not worried about your software, at least not any moreso than the PC, the serial converter, the projector, the timer, etc. Last year our finish line worked the night before the derby, and didn't work when we arrived the next morning. I'm spooked now!

Randy- That's a good point. Thanks. We're hovering just above 7 expected attendees in three dens, so I might be needing to add 5 byes in the worst case. I've long been convinced that points racing was the way to go, but I can't believe that I didn't realize the inequity of PPN schedules. I thought t...

Thanks, Stan. That all makes sense. I worry a bit about having to explain why different dens are handled differently, though I understand that mathematically that would be a good thing. Here are my den sizes, along with my guess of who will show up. Tigers: 7 (great), and I don't know them well enou...

No, I'm not saying my pack finals pool is too large. I need the top four from each den to advance, for the sake of accuracy. I don't want to advance only 3, because I'm awarding four trophies. There's a chance that the four fastest kids in the whole pack are all bears, so only advancing three bears ...

Hello all, in my other post about the pack finals race, I discovered I have an issue in my plan. In discussing it, I came up with another idea I wanted to ask about. I expect 30 kids total at my derby, and we award 4 trophies per den. The top 4 in each den also advance to the pack finals. What that ...

Stan, I'd like a little clarification about your comments on my den-level races. So, with 2-7 racers, 2 runs per lane, I can get a perfect-N chart (if allowing a bye). If I have 13, I'm also good, but 8-12 cars is bad (without adding a bunch of byes up to 13). But three of my dens have 9 or 10 boys....

Hello all- I'm not sure what to do for our pack finals race and was looking for some advice. We're going to have each den (4 dens, each with 6-12 boys) race a PPN schedule, twice down each lane (3 lanes), scoring by points. Trophies goes to 1st through 4th place, and those boys advance to the pack f...

Yes, Stan, that's what I meant. PPN means some guy will race the fast guy twice. I was thinking a true perfect N with byes was the better way to go. Racing my two Webelos 2 would be kind of lame, but if I mix them with my 9 Webelos 1,and add two byes, we're perfectly fair as far as I can see.

And I'd contend that to mix ranks in a points scoring schedule, you need to be careful that the opponent mix is very fair. If, to take an extreme example, you mixed tigers and Webelos, if one tiger had to race more (even one more) heats against Webelos, he'd be at a disadvantage.

Though, I would still consider running them with the Webelos I since there is only 2 of them. Have a Webelos group with a Webelos I and Webelos II subgroups. Even when scoring by points, with GPRM you can look at subgroup standings to base the awards on. But with GPRM, it doesn't let you use subgro...

Darin- thanks for the idea of making sure each scout races each other. That seems like a good rule of thumb.

Unfortunately, I've got one den with only 2 kids (Webelos 2), but the Webelos 1 den has 9. I initially thought I might combine them for racing using subgroups in GPRM, but I've decided on using points for standings, and i've learned that won't work in the software. In a perfect-n chart, everyone wou...

Thanks for your advice Stan. I agree with all of it. I'm glad to have your 75 seconds figure. I would have wrongly estimated lower. I was torn about whether to go twice around or three times around on our three lane track, but when I tried generating charts for 3x, it didn't go well. I don't remembe...

Hello all- Sorry, I'm single-handedly creating all the new posts lately. I was wondering how long you all spend on a pinewood derby. We have 5 dens of between 2 and 10 kids, and I'm going to do perfect-n style race scheduling on a three lane track, probably 2 runs per lane. Using those races, we'll ...