I made a few phone calls today; calls to Scout Shops in my area are a bit entertaining..."Are you serious?". It turns out that the new wheels are scarcer than hen's teeth. The best bet for someone to get their hands on a set is to go to Scout Shops in Minnesota and sort through their stock with a scale.Pinewood Daddy wrote:COME ON!!! Someone produce some wheels!!! We have to know what the real differences are, not theoretical.
With respect to theoretical versus empirical data, take a look at Doc Jobe's Pushing the Speed Limit Lecture....
http://www.pinewoodderbyphysics.com/pdf ... e%2020.pdf ... and decide for yourself how trustworthy Newtonian mechanics are at predicting a PWD car's performance.
In the same vein, I appreciate Stan's "optimism" that there will be some detrimental effects of the 2009 wheel design. However, I have recently run way too many simulations varying the radius of the wheel and estimating the reduction in the effect of friction with a smaller bore to no avail. Yep, they can help narrow the performance gap, but not enough to overcome the lower MOI. I don't think my efforts are making me jump to conclusions, but I am past of the point of starting to loose faith.
Call me crazy...you won't be the first, or, for that matter, the last.