track advice

[wbc]

G'day, I live in Western Australia and this is my story. Our Awana grand prix has about 110 racers every year. We have the wooden track that is in bad shape, so we wanted to get a new track. Not possible here so I thought the aluminium was my only option but I understand derby magic plastic tracks are available too. To ship an aluminium tract will be over $1000 and it is too big for an airline extra luggage. I thought of shipping the plastic track to a friend in NC and she will carry it on the plane for an extra luggage price of $150 . The measurements and weight of the track are suppose to fit on a plane. My quesitons for you are what do you think about the derby magic track? How long of a track should I get? We are not interested in timing each car but the 1-4 placement of each race, therfore what finishline clock shoudl i order? What computer program for brakets should i order?

Thanks for your help as this is important to us and money down here is tight.

Cheers, matt

[Pinewood Daddy]

G'day Matt!! I would suggest searching around this site, finding a few handy guys, and you can build one yourself for far less than buying one. If you need a new timer (Fast Track) that could easily be shipped but you need to tell them the lane spacing before ordering. There are probably less expensive timer (Judge?) but they may only come in standard lane spacings, check before building.

Here's a good place to start your research. http://derbytalk.com/viewforum.php?f=15 There are pics of the track I built in there somewhere.

[wbc]

Thank you for your reply. We have a built one that we have had problems with it and with storing it to. To have someone build one for us it will be about $1000. Everything is expensive here. The derby magic 44 footer, starter, electric finish, computer program and a few cables, etc. will cost about $1325 to purchase and have delivered to us here in West Australia. However, before I purchase I was interested in any feedback about the product and company. Is it worth the purchase?

[gpraceman]

Derby Magic is still a bit new to this market. We have not yet had someone who has one of these tracks provide a review of it. I have not seen it in person, but it looks to be a decent track from the photos they provide on their site. My only misgivings on it are where the fasteners securing each section together are located and the stop section. It looks like the cars will roll over the screw heads securing the sections. Whether this provides any bump to the car, I'm not sure, but it seems like it could. My concern on the stop section is the board at the very end. It would not be good for a car's wheel alignment if it managed to hit it. It looks like you can easily remove that board and maybe add a strap of metal to the bottom to secure things. As far as length goes, I'd recommend getting a 38 footer. Any shorter, you may have a problem with faster cars not stopping well. Any longer, you will have fewer of the slower cars that are able to make it to the finish line.

On timers, you do have quite a few brands to choose from depending on what features you want. If you can afford it, I would recommend one that at least gives the finish order in easy to read numerals. If you are on a tight budget, Micro Wizard does provide their timers in kit form. Drill a few holes and secure things together. Sporty relates his experience putting one of these together, http://derbytalk.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4952. For those on even tighter of a budget and willing to do a bit more work, you can get their K1 "Cheap Kit". For $60US they supply the electronics and you solder it together and build an enclosure to house it. For $20US more, they will solder it together for you. You end up with a good quality timer and one that can work with race management software.

On software, I am rather biased towards my software, so I will not make any specific recommendations. Seeing that you have over 100 racers, I would recommend software that will run a non-elimination schedule. It would just take too long to try to run that many racers through a double elimination race. The scheduling method that I recommend is the Perfect-N type charts. Each racer is given an equal chance to race, will run in each lane and will be given a variety of opponents. It has the additional advantage that you can crank out the heats quickly, since you have the whole schedule laid out before you. With elimination methods, you only know who's running in the current ladder. There is commercial and freeware packages that will run these charts.

[wbc]

Thank you Randy. I was thinking maybe getting a 44 footer and if possible add the last 6 feet to the end of the track if need be. We will have to do a bunch of testing with previous cars. These are usually cars raced only on that day and the kids (dads and mums) make new ones the next year. I will ask about he stopping and wearing out of the wheels.

The way the race is through a large process of elimination of 1-4 place in each race where cars end up racing maybe 4 times with a 1-3 winner for prizes. I don't know how they chart it so we are looking for a program to do it for us and then we can project it up on a screen for everyone to see. Any specific recommendations? There is commercial and freeware packages that will run these charts. Please explain?

thank you for your help. this website is a big help in confidence.

Matthew
(john 14:6)

[altontoth]

My Rover Crew has run the Area races the past several years, and after looking around a little bit, we opted to purchase Grand Prix Race Manager. We figured that $60 was a good deal for a piece of software that had as many features as GPRM does. We scoped out some of the freebie stuff, but weren't wowed by it. Note: I have NO affiliation with Randy or his software, other than being a really happy customer. If you export your race data after the fact to use in Excel, etc, do NOT get version 7, for whatever reason (we had a major failure with its export functions this year). Cheers and good luck.

[Pinewood Daddy]

My Rover Crew has run the Area races the past several years, and after looking around a little bit, we opted to purchase Grand Prix Race Manager. We figured that $60 was a good deal for a piece of software that had as many features as GPRM does. We scoped out some of the freebie stuff, but weren't wowed by it. Note: I have NO affiliation with Randy or his software, other than being a really happy customer. If you export your race data after the fact to use in Excel, etc, do NOT get version 7, for whatever reason (we had a major failure with its export functions this year). Cheers and good luck.

I'm sure Randy will address that problem. We upgraded from V6 to V8 last year and exported to Excel. The exported data wasn't as easy to use as in V6 but it did work. Since most people only use the software once per year it's hard to learn what all the capabilities are and how to properly use it.

[wbc]

thank you men for your advice on the software. Any input on the Derby Magic Track?

[altontoth]

My Rover Crew has run the Area races the past several years, and after looking around a little bit, we opted to purchase Grand Prix Race Manager. We figured that $60 was a good deal for a piece of software that had as many features as GPRM does. We scoped out some of the freebie stuff, but weren't wowed by it. Note: I have NO affiliation with Randy or his software, other than being a really happy customer. If you export your race data after the fact to use in Excel, etc, do NOT get version 7, for whatever reason (we had a major failure with its export functions this year). Cheers and good luck.

I'm sure Randy will address that problem. We upgraded from V6 to V8 last year and exported to Excel. The exported data wasn't as easy to use as in V6 but it did work. Since most people only use the software once per year it's hard to learn what all the capabilities are and how to properly use it.

Yea we already sorted it out with Randy. The problem was he chose to use the Crystal Reports engine to handle it, and it failed miserably. That's been fixed with subsequent versions supposedly. I'd love to take a look at what your exported data looked like. Here's the sample results exported: http://www.coast-connections.net/GroupStandings.csv

[altontoth]

thank you men for your advice on the software. Any input on the Derby Magic Track?

Sorry for the double post.

All the tracks in our Council have been built by handy Scouters with shops. however, looking briefly at their site, it looks like a decent enough system. I like very much their 'wire conduit' for hiding your cables. The board at the end of the stop way I don't think is a problem, as they say that braking section is 4 feet long and is covered in a friction material. We're looking at doing something similar for our new track, using a rubber tape available at any electrical supply store (used for water-tight connections when regular electrical tape won't do it). My 2c worth.

[gpraceman]

thank you men for your advice on the software. Any input on the Derby Magic Track?

This time of year is pretty slow on the forum, so I'm not sure if you will get some good feedback in the near term. Things pick up speed around here Oct/Nov. Maybe Derby Magic can provide you with some references.

Yea we already sorted it out with Randy. The problem was he chose to use the Crystal Reports engine to handle it, and it failed miserably. That's been fixed with subsequent versions supposedly. I'd love to take a look at what your exported data looked like. Here's the sample results exported: http://www.coast-connections.net/GroupStandings.csv

Exporting data from reports has been improved, but is still dependent on how Crystal Reports wants to export things. There are a few settings that I can tweak with CR. However, everywhere else in the software, when you see data in a table, you can easily export that data to a CSV file. Just click on the export button directly above the table (green X button). If the export from the reports is not to your liking, then maybe exporting table data will be.