How many is too many?

General discussions for car and semi-truck racers.
Topspin.D
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How many is too many?

Post by Topspin.D »

Right now we've got 8 cars in various stages of being built. 2 identical cars for each of the two boys, a dad car, a mom car, and a fill car in case it's needed to round out our heats.

Is there such a thing as too many?
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Scrollsawer
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Re: How many is too many?

Post by Scrollsawer »

Holy cow! We usually do 3 cars each year (2 boys, and their sister), and it's all we can do to complete 3 cars in a single season. Our races are in late January, and that's usually a really busy work period, after the holidays.

What would you estimate your total build time expenditure is across all of your cars? For us, the priming, painting, and clear coating process takes a couple weeks alone (factoring for cure times).

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Re: How many is too many?

Post by Topspin.D »

Well.... The kids build in 30-60 minute increments between Christmas break and March when we have our pack race. Probably 3-4 hours for each of their cars (I do the power tool work) before painting. Add another hour over a few days for painting.

I've gotten pretty efficient. I cut, shaped and weighted 2 cars in under 2 hours this weekend. Sanding, painting, wheel/axel prep, and alignment will probably take another 2-3 hours for these as well.

So 5 hours for kid cars and about 2.5 for adult cars to be race ready.
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Re: How many is too many?

Post by Topspin.D »

Image

These are the latest two we started tonight. Spoons all marked out and ready to be shaped.
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Re: How many is too many?

Post by Noskills »

Topspin,
2 per kid in case one breaks or do you have a chance to see which is faster? I would build 2 per kid if I did.
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Re: How many is too many?

Post by TXDerbyDad »

I build a car to refresh the boys on how its done, then we build one for each Cub and any siblings that want to race. This year that means the Webelos I and Bear, my youngest daughter and my 4 year old who wants to be a Cub so bad he can taste it. My Boy Scout may also want to do it as well.
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Re: How many is too many?

Post by sporty »

At one time, before we learned more and were missing the finer skills and repeat ability. We had done as many as 20 cars. So I think 8 is fine.

I once heard a rumor once, that someone built over 50 cars, to get 1 out of the 50 that was faster then all the rest, all built the same way.

The more you do, the more you learn or start to learn and if you have a track and get to test and tune. This really helps speed up the process of learning and tinkering.

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Re: How many is too many?

Post by Topspin.D »

2 per kid in case one breaks or do you have a chance to see which is faster? I would build 2 per kid if I did.
That's the exact reason for 2 cars. 2 identical cars in case one gets broken somehow. Also, last year we did build a test track (only 24 feet) and a timer to test cars. We then raced only the fastest ones.

We had 7 cars in various stages of build last year, but we only finished the 4 fastest.
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Re: How many is too many?

Post by Topspin.D »

Part of my 8 this year includes finishing a few of the partials from last year. They will be "fill" cars. Because the first round of races includes scouts and open category cars, I plan on having a few very very slow fill cars to try to make sure that all scouts have a chance to beat some other car.
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Re: How many is too many?

Post by MOFAST »

I have 2 boys and last year we made 8 cars and each boy raced off his 4 cars and then raced his fastest at our PWD. We struggled to get them done, the boys struggled to pick a car, they wanted to win but maybe didn't like one car as much.

This year we only made one car per boy, BUT we focused on doing everything as perfect as we could. We took our time, everything was a lot more relaxed. We have to use the slots but we can fill the slots and drill, so that is what we did. We focused on the drilling being the best that it could be. Last year we didn't know how to really tune. This year we will spend some appropriate time on a track tuning before the PWD. I know that this year's cars are way faster than last years without even having seen a timer yet.

Oh, I did build a car for myself first and it has seen the track and I am very happy with the times. I did this on purpose, so I would get my wanting to do everything myself out of my system. Just my .02. If you have time to do everything perfectly than build as many cars as you want, just make sure you aren't rushing them.
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Re: How many is too many?

Post by Noskills »

I would have trouble getting my kids to build more than one car I think. As is, I am like "lets sand for 15 min today guys, lets put the primer on today guys, who wants to prep axels this morning..." I would worry that I would do too much on the second car. We also account for the weight of the paint in our cars and we like to make them look good. We spend alot of time and the kids get invested in the car. Would be hard to duplicate that. Also even if I could test my cars I would want to test them at the very end of the work, meaning all painted and tuned. I would not want to race 2 90% complete cars and only paint and detail the faster of the two.

Its a tough question. That being said I may make a few cars for myself and send the fastest to the mid-America.

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Re: How many is too many?

Post by TXDerbyDad »

Topspin.D wrote:Part of my 8 this year includes finishing a few of the partials from last year. They will be "fill" cars. Because the first round of races includes scouts and open category cars, I plan on having a few very very slow fill cars to try to make sure that all scouts have a chance to beat some other car.
That is a phenomenal idea! I will try and do that as well! :bigups:
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Re: How many is too many?

Post by Noskills »

Topspin, how the builds going? Go Hawks!
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Re: How many is too many?

Post by gpraceman »

Noskills wrote:Go Hawks!
Go Broncos!
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Awana Grand Prix and Pinewood Derby racing - Where a child, an adult and a small block of wood combine for a lot of fun and memories.
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Re: How many is too many?

Post by Topspin.D »

Our builds are stalled because of family visitors and super bowl. We'll be in high gear after this weekend.

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