Another race comes and goes

[gpraceman]

Well we had our race Saturday night and overall it was a good race. My daughter and my youngest son won 1st Place in Speed and my other son got 2nd Place in Design.

My daughter's car looks much like a spike, with nothing much for a front end other than a crossbar to mount the wheels a very pointy nose. The night before the race, we do our "Time Trials", where each racer gets the change to test run their cars a couple of times, though there is no actual timing done. As soon as my daughter ran her car for her first run, the car went lickety split down the track, hit our stopping blocks and the front end shattered. Both wheel mountings snapped clean off.

We had to take it home and do some emergency repairs. We carefully glued the wheel mountings back on then glued parts of a popsicle stick to the top and bottom of the crossbar to sandwich the repaired joints. Then we wrapped it all with fishing line, for added strength, and ended up with essentially a splint for the front end. A little paint was added to touch things up (I'm really glad she hand painted it in the first place).

Once we got it back together, we did a little roll test and the car pulled noticeably to the left, but it was too late to do anything about it. Well, to our amazement, during the race, she broke the track record three times and ended up with 1st place in Speed. She did most of the work on the car, so I'm happy that she did so well.

Well, time to get some Z's. It has been a long day, but hopefully one my kids will remember for a long time. I know I will.

[Den_Leader]

Holly repair tables... Great job.

It starting to look like pineheads rule!!! Alex, Neal, Sparky, Randy's family, et. al...

[Cory]

My daughter's car looks much like a spike, with nothing much for a front end other than a crossbar to mount the wheels a very pointy nose. The night before the race, we do our "Time Trials", where each racer gets the change to test run their cars a couple of times, though there is no actual timing done. As soon as my daughter ran her car for her first run, the car went lickety split down the track, hit our stopping blocks and the front end shattered. Both wheel mountings snapped clean off.

Race Day two years ago we had a similar thing happen. Bullet car, very fast, but there was a faster car that was beating it every time during their Den races. Near the end, the bullet crashed spectacularly, breaking off three of the wheel mountings -- it was in four separate pieces, each with a wheel.

They took their five minutes and patched it back together with Super Glue, and beat the faster car in their next two races. Those two cars advanced to the Rank finals where the Super Glued bulllet car won easily.

Go figure.

In fun, people jokingly accused them of intentionally crashing the car out of desperation -- their only chance of winning was make some kind of adjustment and the only way to do that was to break the car.

[terryep]

Wow! What kind of stopping block was it a brick wall? That would be a cool stunt, build a car that shatters to pieces at the finish! Your daughter must have been in shock? My son has had a wheel pop off during a race but your story beats anything I've ever heard.

Seriously, congrats Randy.

Terry

[Gavin Chafin]

Randy, congratulations!

[TDean]

Congrats Randy -- to you and your family!

I have a fairly similar story as well -- last year, my son's car won every heat in the Den race, but in the Pack Finals his car also smashed into the finish line gate. One wheel flew off (the raised one), and the other front axle was bent so badly the wheel was jammed up against the car, immobile. (he still scored a 3rd out of 4 for that heat!) I was allowed to take two minutes to repair it, grabbed a pair of needle nose pliers and tried to straighten it out, shoved the other wheel on and handed it back (no additional graphite or anything allowed).
His car scored another 3rd in his next heat, and his face and hopes sunk. Then, his next heat, he came in 1st! And he came in 1st in each of his next five heats -- ultimately taking home 2nd Place in the Pack!
When we got home and I finally pulled that axle out -- it had a remarkable little S-curve in it where had been bent back and forth...

[gpraceman]

What kind of stopping block was it a brick wall? Your daughter must have been in shock?

She was definitely in shock. I think it was just a matter of force distribution. She had her wheels pushed forward so far that the front edges were pretty much even with the needle point nose. When her car hit the pads on our stopping blocks (which slide along to slow the cars down) the wheels took most of the force, due to the greater surface area. That in combination with a very slim profile left little wood to to take up the force. This was the first time anything like this has happend since we built the blocks 3 or 4 years ago.

That would be a cool stunt, build a car that shatters to pieces at the finish!

That reminds me of what happened to another car at our Time Trials. One of the fathers, an artist, made a man lying down on a stretcher all bandaged up. His head was raised a bit as if he was looking down the track with an expression of terror on his face as he plummeted to his doom. It was a very nice piece of work. On the first run down the track, the car got about half way down then the guy's head popped off and rolled down the track after the car.

[terryep]

That would have been hilarious!

I like those sliding blocks, I built one to try when I was refurbishing our track. It worked great but when I asked my wife (a finish line gudge) she wasn't keen on having to reset them for each race. I went tried a couple other passive ideas instead. I did think they should be the most gentle on the cars though.

Terry

[SteveJahr]

I like those sliding blocks, I built one to try when I was refurbishing our track. It worked great but when I asked my wife (a finish line gudge) she wasn't keen on having to reset them for each race.

Terry

I let the computer do my finish line judging as it complains less

And I have my daughter reset the stop blocks, it gives her something to do at the boy's PWD.