Staging the car

General discussions for car and semi-truck racers.
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Stan Pope
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Staging the car

Post by Stan Pope »

My frau taught her den members to gently pull the wheels to the ends of the axles while checking that the car was staged pointing "straight down the track." Due to respective braking torques, starting at the ends of the axles is superior to starting against the car body (assuming usual torque reduction techniques).

However, I would try to teach them to start with the wheels midway out the axles. If the wheels are well aligned in all cases, midway will be superior.

Assumptions:
1. Scouts stage their own cars "by eye."
2. Tracks are leveled side-to-side so that they do not try to steer the car left or right.
3. Excellent wheel / axle alignment.
4. Tapered hubs.
5. Tapered axle heads.
Stan
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TDean
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Re: Staging the car

Post by TDean »

At our Pack's Pinewood Derby races, the Cubs are do not place their cars on the starting line. That chore is left up to whomever is running the race, or offers to help out. The boys are only allowed to retrieve their cars from the finish line and return them to the "pit" to await their next race.
It is this way at our District races as well -- and the only way I have ever seen races held. But from reading the posts of yours and many others I have come to the belief that we are in the minority.
Do you feel we are missing out on something beneficial to the boys in not allowing them to stage their own cars? Are they missing a crucial piece of the "Pinewood Experience"? I can see that any subjective 3rd party involvement is undesirable, whether it is an adult staging or flipping the starting pins (as addressed in another forum thread), but does not the Cub self-staging unfairly benefit the older more experienced Webelos over the youunger boys -- and doesn't the process slow down dramatically when you have to wait for each boy to align his car?

Just curious.....
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Stan Pope
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Re: Staging the car

Post by Stan Pope »

TDean wrote:At our Pack's Pinewood Derby races, the Cubs are do not place their cars on the starting line. That chore is left up to whomever is running the race, or offers to help out. The boys are only allowed to retrieve their cars from the finish line and return them to the "pit" to await their next race.
It is this way at our District races as well -- and the only way I have ever seen races held. But from reading the posts of yours and many others I have come to the belief that we are in the minority.
Do you feel we are missing out on something beneficial to the boys in not allowing them to stage their own cars? Are they missing a crucial piece of the "Pinewood Experience"? I can see that any subjective 3rd party involvement is undesirable, whether it is an adult staging or flipping the starting pins (as addressed in another forum thread), but does not the Cub self-staging unfairly benefit the older more experienced Webelos over the youunger boys -- and doesn't the process slow down dramatically when you have to wait for each boy to align his car?

Just curious.....
Owner staging vs. Organizer staging varies with local traditions. In my council, owner staging is normal. 100 miles east in my grandson's council, the boys are spectators, except during the 8-car finals of the council races.

There's lots of reasons for the owner to stage his own car. I won't go into 'em all here, but most are in a "rant" on my website.

Even if it doubled or tripled the time, it would be worth it.

Most of our racing is against others the same age. The Race of Champions at the end of our district racing is an exception.

We run quintuple elimination, three lanes at a time, at our district races. The target time per heat is 34 seconds. When this rate is not reached, it is usually the fault of the track team and not the Scouts. We are organized to have a lot of overlap in various heat functions, but the track staff has to be well trained and alert. Quintuple elim with about 50 racers takes us about 2 hours, though we should accomplish it in less time than that. More typical is 80 to 90 racers in 3 hours, including a ladder finals to award the 5 place trophies. It if really amazing to watch 80+ Tiger Cubs racing their cars! Two years ago, a Tiger won our Race of Champions, barely edging out a 5th grade Webelos. (The 5th grade Webelos raced the "green car" that I mentioned in another post about the Sycamore Invitational. The "orange/red car" in that post belonged to my grandson who was the Council Champ from a council about 100 miles away.)

If I missed any of your concerns let me know and I'll take another run at 'em.
Stan
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Re: Staging the car

Post by Gavin Chafin »

We don’t let the Cubs put the cars on the tracks in our races. I understand that, a couple of years ago, one of the kids ended up dropping his car and breaking it beyond repair. From what I’ve been told, it was an ugly scene. Our Pack is averse to repeating a scene like that. Personally, I prefer it if you have one experienced, adult starter placing the cars on the track. I don’t really feel that the starting gate is where a wiser, or more aggressive boy should gain an advantage over the other kids. What if you had a situation where one boy bumped another boy’s car off of the starting gate when he was setting up his car? It seems to me that dropping a car would be a more likely scenario if the boys set up the cars rather than the adults. Coming from a father whose son is far more physically challenged than the other boys, I certainly would hate to see my son throw away all of our hard work because he didn’t understand the mechanics of placing the car on the track. I simply don’t feel that’s where the race should be won or lost. The boys work hard to build the cars…let them sit back and enjoy the race.
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Re: Staging the car

Post by Stan Pope »

Gavin Chafin wrote:We don’t let the Cubs put the cars on the tracks in our races. I understand that, a couple of years ago, one of the kids ended up dropping his car and breaking it beyond repair. From what I’ve been told, it was an ugly scene. Our Pack is averse to repeating a scene like that. Personally, I prefer it if you have one experienced, adult starter placing the cars on the track. I don’t really feel that the starting gate is where a wiser, or more aggressive boy should gain an advantage over the other kids. What if you had a situation where one boy bumped another boy’s car off of the starting gate when he was setting up his car? It seems to me that dropping a car would be a more likely scenario if the boys set up the cars rather than the adults. Coming from a father whose son is far more physically challenged than the other boys, I certainly would hate to see my son throw away all of our hard work because he didn’t understand the mechanics of placing the car on the track. I simply don’t feel that’s where the race should be won or lost. The boys work hard to build the cars…let them sit back and enjoy the race.
Your dropped car incident was an aberation. Certainly, it is hard, but it is a whole lot easier to deal with than if it were damaged because some adult dropped it? How do you explain that to the kid?

I saw more cars dropped by council race staff (at a nearby council), each in separate incidents, in one day than I have seen dropped by youth in more than 15 years of watching pack and district racing locally.

Ask the boys! It's their race! I asked my (now grown) son what he would have thought about your organization's plan. His response was, "That doesn't sound like much fun."

I observed an adult bias race results by manipulating staging. It is hard to detect, and, unfortunately, harder to prove. It is also hard to demonstrate the impartiality of the adult.

Your group really needs to revisit the issue and study the "what if's" more thoroughly.
Stan
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Re: Staging the car

Post by Stan Pope »

By the way, my grandson lives in a council where the boys are race-day spectators, except one year when I ran the pack race for them (because all their knowledge was in Afghanistan), and during the finals of the council races.

My grandson is autistic. That is a pretty severe challenge and results in some "interesting behaviors." But, during the several opportunities that he had to actually race his own car, he was up to the challenge. He is the repeat champion of his council (undefeated since he started taking Grandpa's advice about his car.)

I'd rather watch him race his own car and lose than watch someone else race it and win.
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Re: Staging the car

Post by Gavin Chafin »

Stan, I think this comes down to the old golf argument of…Do you think that walking from hole to hole should be part of the sport or do you think that some people should be able to ride in golf carts? Your answer is different depending upon what perspective you’re coming from. If you’re Casey Martin, your viewpoint is obviously that walking from hole to hole is not a vital part of the sport and you should be given a “bye” in that respect. But, if you’re a healthy, able golfer, you’re answer is likely to be that handicap individuals should not be able to compete at high-level competitions if they can’t walk from hole to hole.

My son also is on the autistic spectrum. We’re talking about a child who still can’t tie his shoes, button buttons, ride a bike, put on a seatbelt, or do most of the tasks that require fine motor sills (and even many tasks that require large motor skills). The likelihood of him dropping his car has to be dozens of times greater than the likelihood of the other kids dropping their cars. And, the likelihood of him properly aligning his car on the track is very low. In at least one of the heats, his car would very likely bounce off the center guide and run off the track. In my particular circumstance, I simply don’t want this to be a deciding factor in the race. I don’t want to see weeks, or months, of anticipation and preparation get flushed down the toilet because of what, in my opinion, is something that doesn’t have to be part of the equation. And, while I acknowledge that adults are as capable of dropping cars as children, I would certainly argue that one calm, patient adult has a greater likelihood of being more responsible with the cars than a hoard of excitable children.

Now, if I had a neuro-typical child, I may very well be in favor of allowing the children to set up their own cars. Again, it boils down to what perspective you’re looking at this from.

If you ask the kids what they want to do, I can guarantee you that they will always pick the option that guarantees them more hands-on time with the cars. If you asked the kids if they wanted to race until 5:00AM, I guarantee you they’d shout, “YEAH!” As we all know, kids don’t always know what is necessarily in their best interests.
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Stan Pope
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Re: Staging the car

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Gavin Chafin wrote: If you asked the kids if they wanted to race until 5:00AM, I guarantee you they’d shout, “YEAH!”
Actually, no. They start to run down after a few hours!

I understand. Yet I sympathize for your boys who have been denied an incredible experience.

Incidentally, my district has "conduct of racing rules" that accomodate handicaps: Youth participate to the extent of their ability, but may access such assistance as is required. And we have had occasion to make use of the rule, with excellent results.

I think that our approach provides the best possible experience for all of the boys, whether they are limited or not. Your pack's approach penalizes all. It really needs to be revisited.
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Re: Staging the car

Post by Darin McGrew »

We have an experienced adult stage the cars. With our previous track (RIP), we could have had the youth stage their own cars if we had thought of it. With our current track, it would be impractical. The experienced adult has to stand on a raised platform (about 2' high) to be able to reach the starting gate.

No, we didn't think about things like that until after the track was completed. :-(
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Re: Staging the car

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darin_mcgrew wrote:With our current track, it would be impractical. The experienced adult has to stand on a raised platform (about 2' high) to be able to reach the starting gate.

No, we didn't think about things like that until after the track was completed. :-(
Too bad. Oh, well, you have more ideas on how to design your next track!

Just got this computer back in service... nailed by MS Auto update ... couldn't login after required reboot! Had me down for 28 hours trying to work around it. :( Lost a bunch of SETI@home production as a result, too. I've made some adjustments in my administration procedures as a result of that experience! All seems okay now. :)
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Re: Staging the car

Post by Darin McGrew »

Stan Pope wrote:
darin_mcgrew wrote:With our current track, it would be impractical. The experienced adult has to stand on a raised platform (about 2' high) to be able to reach the starting gate.

No, we didn't think about things like that until after the track was completed. :-(
Too bad. Oh, well, you have more ideas on how to design your next track!
Yep. The other key one is that it's better to build/use a separate table to support the track, rather than to build the table into the track itself.

Our current track has a framework structure for each section. The framework supports the legs, and the track bed sits on top of the framework. The section-to-section connectors attach the framework of one section to the framework of the next. Even with alignment pins, etc., we always end up with a lot of fiddling to get the track lined up when we assemble it each year.

It would be easier to get the track bed sections to line up if we were connecting them to each other directly, rather than connecting each one to its framework, and then connecting the framework. And it would have been easier to build.
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Re: Staging the car

Post by Stan Pope »

Oh, I see. I first thought you had a 6 or 7 foot drop from the starting line. It makes more sense that the entire track is elevated and that the drop is more normal... about 4 feet.
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Re: Staging the car

Post by Darin McGrew »

Stan Pope wrote:Oh, I see. I first thought you had a 6 or 7 foot drop from the starting line. It makes more sense that the entire track is elevated and that the drop is more normal... about 4 feet.
IIRC, it's about a 6-foot drop. The starting gate is about 7 feet high, and the level section of the track is about a foot high.

I wasn't on the track rebuilding team, so I don't really know why they built the track the way they did, but here's my guess.

Our old track (RIP) also used a framed structure for each section, but it was much more solid and stable, and therefore easier to get lined up properly. But it was also heavy and hard to store. So when they rebuilt the track, they kept the framed structure design, but lightened it quite a bit to make it easier to store. In the process, they lost the stability that made the framed structure somewhat worth it.
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