Derby Talk

Recently bought a used track, it is in the Track section. I do have a question not in regards to the track but from running the derby.

Say, we ran all eight lanes, it would be like having two races done at a time. You could do a lot more racing. Do you think it would be more discouraging to the boys with slow cars? Instead of the chance of getting a third in a race now they might get 7th or 8th? Those boys with fast cars would stand out that much more I believe. It's bad enough when you have a boy get 4th every time on a 4 lane track, but I have to think getting an 8th every time would be brutal. It kills me when the little guys get so upset.

Opinions? We have a total of 40 boys racing. 14 Tigers, 14 Wolves, 8 Bears, and 4 Webelos. Plus, probably 10 siblings racing and maybe an adult race. We have a 4 lane track as well, that the sibling races will be done on. We could run both tracks at once, 4 lanes per track. The thing I don't like about 2 tracks is parents with multiple racers might miss some racing.

Your thinking is pretty clear already!

They will figure out fairly quickly which cars are the slowest ... no need to rub their noses in it in one 8-lane heat!

Another consideration is that is is pretty hard to met all 8 lanes pretty close to even ... So more heats needed to assure each runs on each lane.

Stan, Can't sleep or do you work evenings like I do? I work 10pm to 6:30 am and lately have been checking derbytalk on my breaks.

My diurnal cycle runs about +2 hours. Doesn't mesh well with the real world, but works okay with retirement.

See http://www.derbytalk.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=6084

I'm considering some "spirit of scouting" changes going forward, and one addition I'm considering, is to have either the race crew give guidance to any cars who finish last more than once by more than a few cart lengths... Whether it be spind some graphite into the wheels, or correct alignment..... Theres something inherently out of alignment with allowing the ongoing display in that way

I personally think that 8 lanes would be overkill in your situation (in most situations imho). The boys that have really slow cars typically know it and whether it is 3,4,8 or 20 lanes, does not really matter. While they seem upset, that can be a great opportunity to offer them help next year if they are interested.

My oldest son's first year as a tiger, he actually won his den and got 2nd in pack to go to districts. At Districts, he raced on a 6 lane track and got beat by at least 1 full car length to every other car on the track and got 31/32 cars for time. While he was initially a little upset, it really got him into it and he was dedicated to improving every single year. He got better each year, winning districts in his 4th year just by trying a little harder each year.

As a question to your post, do you run all the boys together, or by rank? I would think it would leave more opportunity for boys to be competitive against their rank.

By rank, and then the winners of each rank race for Pack champion. Only 1 boy per rank goes to districts.

I apologize for being Off Topic, but 1 boy per rank to Districts seems extremely harsh. Is there a specific reason so few scouts get to advance to Districts, and could the number be changed?

Since you are going by rank, then 8 lanes is definately overkill imo. Whatever lanes you use, you want everybody to race in every lane if possible to keep it the most fair, as some lanes will be faster than others. In the dens with 8, all of them would race each other 8 times and would get boring by the end, as it would be pretty predictable.