Corporate Race

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gpraceman
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Corporate Race

Post by gpraceman »

I ran a race in Dallas last night for a big company holding a team building conference for their employees. They flew me in the night before the race and I caught a flight back right after the race ended. They went all out, as you will see from the photos below. A brand new 4 lane BestTrack, The Champ timer, New Directions solenoid gate and several of the products that I offer. They even had a real F-1 racing car in one of the conference rooms! :O :drool:

This wasn't your typical race. Employee teams would play various games to earn points. Those points were used to trick out a pre-assembled car. They could choose from decals, hubcaps, colored wheels, weights, axle guards, speed axles, and other accessories that were available in the derby store. They also chose a team name.

The race went off without a hitch, but there was plenty of pre-race drama. Well, I mentioned the timer and the solenoid gate. Both had power supplies with identical plugs. Not sure who powered up the timer, but the wrong power supply got plugged into it. Seems 24V is not a good thing to provide to a timer expecting 12V. :eek: The timer's display was only partially functioning and none of the lane sensors were working. Seems once that magical electronic smoke escapes, there isn't much a layman could do to help things. :cry:

Well, we made urgent calls to BestTrack and eTekGadget (provides the electronics for The Champ), but they were not able to help us resurrect the timer. I called my wife, who was minding the shop while I was gone, to give me some phone numbers of GPRM customers in the Dallas area. One of those was a gold nugget. His pack is going to have their race this coming weekend but their pack leadership didn't want to chance messing up their race if something happened to the timer (our timer track record at that point wasn't too good, so I don't blame them). However, the guy called around to other packs in the area and found one willing to bring over a timer. That pack's cubmaster showed up with their Fast Track timer. He didn't even want to accept any donation to his pack for their trouble.

We got the Fast Track timer put on the track and start switch mounted. Had to use door stop wedges to lift the timer to the bottom of the track and hold it in place. Not ideal, but it worked.

Without further adieu, here's the photos. The conference was held at the Marriott and the race at the Sabre Holdings cafeteria (company behind Travelocity and some other travel sites).

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Here's some of the cars. There were 14 teams (cars) in total.
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Randy Lisano
Romans 5:8

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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sporty
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Re: Corporate Race

Post by sporty »

wow, What a corporate race, flown in and all. Randy is getting all the good stuff these days. :thumbup:


what is that big tube they got on the table there ? lube ?

looks like they had some real nice goodies, shirts and glasses and ect.

Sporty
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gpraceman
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Re: Corporate Race

Post by gpraceman »

sporty wrote:wow, What a corporate race, flown in and all. Randy is getting all the good stuff these days. :thumbup:
Well, it helps to know the software inside and out.
sporty wrote:what is that big tube they got on the table there ? lube ?
That was Tube-O-Lube. I wish I would have taken more photos in their derby shop. They had regular speed axles, grooved axles, graphite lube, car decals, wheel decals, body skins, lead strip weights, colored and regular black wheels, and axle guards, and some of the zinc type add ons (driver, exhaust pipes, etc.).
sporty wrote:looks like they had some real nice goodies, shirts and glasses and ect.
Each team did get a basket of shirts and other goodies. I managed to grab a couple of shirts as souvenirs.
Randy Lisano
Romans 5:8

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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