This first picture is my Outlaw car:
It is a 4-wheeler, aligned straight, using my method for creating BSA Razor Wheels, and tungsten cubes for weighting. The canopy is decoration only and is simply a painted half shell wooded egg. The paint job is a PineCar body skin. The overall shape is the "Bahrain" template from my online wing template collection. It took 1st place in the adult Outlaw division for both the Cub Scout District Derby and the Girl Scout District Derby.
This next picture is my wife's Outlaw car:
It is also a 4-wheeler, aligned straight, with BSA Razor Wheels. She is using lead weighting covered with a balsa canopy. The overall shape is the "Ibanez Extended" template from my online wing template collection. It took 2nd place in the adult Outlaw division for both the Cub Scout District Derby and the Girl Scout District Derby.
This next picuture is my son's Outlaw car:
Again, this is a 4-wheeler, aligned straight, with BSA Razor Wheels and tungsten cubes for weighting. Canopy is a half wooden egg. The overall shape is "The Stick" template from my online wing template collection. My son is 13 years old and in Boy Scouts, but I do not let him race in the Youth Outlaw divisions anymore because he is too good and is always taking 1st place, so I make him race in the adult Outlaw division for stiffer competition. His car took 3rd place for the adult Outlaw division for the Cub Scout District Derby and 4th place for the Girl Scout District Derby.
This next picture is me and my son's entry for the Einstein Race (slowest car to cross the finish line wins):
The one with the silver satellite dish on it is mine. It has no extra weight added to it, raw axles, and pre-2009 BSA wheels. The thought behind it was that the dish would act like a sail and slow the car down as it approached the finish line. It worked, but not nearly well enough to even get me into the finals. My son's design was a bit more clever. It has no extra weight added to it, raw axles, pre-2009 BSA wheels, and one rear wheel pushed tight against the car body. His thought behind the design is that the car would not break the eye beam on the electronic finish line until the back-end of the car crossed it. This would give him a six inch slow down advantage in case the race was close. The rules didn't say anything about breaking the eye beam with the rear of the car, so it was considered legal and allowed to race. The design paid off for him and he took 1st place in the race. Had his car broke the beam with the front of his car, he would have only achieved 2nd or 3rd place at best. I'm sure there will be a rule against this type of design next year.
This next picture is me and my son's entry for the Demolition Derby:
The green truck is mine. It is center weighted behind the cab. The wheels are cut down to BSA Razor Wheels with the hub removed. These wheels give the car a lot of play from side to side, but since there is no center guide rail on the track, the slop isn't that noticeable (note that rear wheel is at a different angle then the front wheel, in the picture, so the slop is very rough). There was actually several ideas in play with the truck's design. I let the wood soak up a fair amount of sanding sealer in order to keep the wood hard and resist spliting or chipping. The flame stripping is actually tape that I was hoping would hold the car together when taking front end collisions. I went with a "blunt force trauma" idea by making the front end flat in hoping that head to head collisions would produce maximum damage to my opponent (especially if I hit an exposed wheel). The track is six inches wide with 1/4" high side rails to keep the cars going towards each other. I figured that by reducing the wheel size the car would have about an inch and a half clearance where it could pass the opponent midway on the track, go up the other hill and come down in reverse to finally collide with my opponent rear end to rear end. The wheel slop allows the car to pull immediately to one side of the open track so passing is more likely to occur. They were using a triple elimination method with damaged cars being paired with cars that had like damage. I went into the finals with only one loss against me, and my design paid off as I won more heats hitting in reverse than I did going forwards. In the end, it came in 1st place for the derby. My son's car had the same type of wheels, but he moved his front wheels back further to help protect them from a direct collision. He sloped the front of the car, hoping that he could get under his opponent's car and flip it. About half of the designs in the derby were done this way with the other half being "blunt force trauma". In the end the "blunt force trauma" group proved to be superior and took the top three positions. My son's car was eliminated early on and never made it to the finals.
This next picture is my oldest and youngest daughter's Demolition Derby cars:
Believe it or not, both my daughters were not going to be in the Demolition Derby, until they saw a demonstration of the track at a local pack meeting. They then took a great interest in the race and began planning and building cars five day before the race (I guess all kids love seeing things go smash). The bus is my yougest daughter's car. The bus is center weighted with pre-2009 wheels on it and raw axles. She ran this in the Einstein Race as well, but it proved to be too fast. The design is "blunt force trauma" with added protection in front of the wheels to prevent a direct hit. Unfortunately I think the angling of the protection in front of the wheels played against her and the bus was often pushed from the track resulting in her loss. The oldest daughter decided on a simple truck design with the front wheels further back. It was rear weighted for maximum speed. It took a number of direct head on collisions, but the wins were not enough to keep it from finally being eliminated.
This is my youngest daughter's car for the Girl Scouts District race:
This is a basically a lead sled. We started with a 1/4" slab from the block and cut it down to nothing but a ladder frame with the wrungs being where the axles went into the wood. We then glued a 1/8" hobby plywood plank to the frame to act as the platform the Cheetah is standing on. We used lead weights, raised a front wheel, and turned it into a rail rider. The kits the Girls Scouts use are Max V, not BSA. This meant very little work needed to be done on the axles and wheels. We covered the bottom area with a thin piece of balsa, so the car is actually hollow on the inside. We sloped the front end on the under side of the car to assist with any minor air resistance. In the end, she took 1st place in Districts. I was quite surprised by this, because I figured the Cheetah figure on top would probably slow the car down. It was rather comical to watch, as the car's low profile made the Cheetah stand out and gave the appearance that the Cheetah was running among the other cars as they went down the six lane track. I've noticed over the years that the Girl Scouts in our races seemed to be more concerned with how the car looks then whether it goes fast or not (my daughter's included). They seem to take more pleasure in their cars being recognized by the other girls at the derby than trying to win. The more "Oooo's" and "Ahhh's" they get the happier they are. She also won the "Best Animal Theme" award as well.
This is my oldest daughter's car for the Girl Scouts District race:
It is a three wheel rail rider, using tungsten cube weights. The canopy on top is just a decorative wooden half egg shell. The overall shape is the "Sudden Impact" template (with the center cut out) from my online wing template collection. The car came in 4th place for the district and won the "Best Cookie Theme" award.
This next picture is of my oldest and youngest daughter's Youth Outlaw division cars for the Girl Scout's District race:
My daughter's are both fans of the "Monster High" dolls and decided to make cars that had their likenesses on them. It was difficult finding something that we could put on the cars, but we finally came across a Monster High Fashion Design book where the pictures of the figures were 7.5 inches tall. Because of the length restrictions in the rules being 7 inches, the images both got their feet cut off by half an inch. These cars are lead sleds, similiar in design to the Cheetah car I mentioned above. They have BSA Razor Wheels with the hubs set into the car body and they are 4-wheelers that are aligned straight. The "Draculaura" car took 1st place, followed by the "Frankie Stein" car that took 2nd. Both my daughter's were very pleased with the cars they made this year.
This last car is an Outlaw car that I made and raced at the first Pack race of the season:
The car is a 4 wheeler, aligned straight, with a solid lead canopy, DerbyWorx Outlaw Razor Wheels and Nickel-Plated Speed Axles. I really just wanted to see how well my home-made BSA Razor Wheels stood up against professional razor wheels. My expectations were high and I was expecting to easily blow away my competition. Unfortunately things never really go as expected. The car took 3rd place in the adult Outlaw division, being beaten by my wife, and a fellow pinehead that I enjoy racing against. Both the other cars were using my home-made BSA Razor Wheels with home polished BSA axles. I haven't fully figured out what went wrong and will continue to test the professional wheels and axles, as they look to be far superior to anything I could ever produce at home. In order to save my "reputation" I went back to the tried and trued methods of my home-made BSA Razor Wheels and wound up making the first car that I showed you above (which is also the fastest car that I have produced to date).
Thanks for taking the time to look at my pictures and read this long post. I hope they spark some ideas for your future builds and I look forward to posting my family's next year's builds as well!
-Nitro Dan
