Derby Talk is a forum for Pinewood Derby, Awana Grand Prix, Kub Kar Rally, Shape N Race Derby, Space Derby, Raingutter Regatta and other similar races where a child and an adult work together to create a race vehicle and a lot of fun and memories
grifflew wrote:We had a situation with oil at our District Derby. The rules allowed only dry lubricants, ie: graphite/moly, and were inspected at check in as usual. When running the race, a car was found to have "wet" wheels, the tread surface was covered with some type of oil. The only thing we can think of is, 1. The wheel bores were filled with oil that leaked out during the first run of the car (doubt it) or somehow in the on-deck circle dad applied oil. There was so much it was running down the track. We had to stop the race, clean the track and unfortunately for the Scout, DQ his car. When confronted, the dad said it was "water"
Hopefully, it was not an inspection issue, but that is something that should be looked at for next year's race.
If the kids are handling the cars, then I think that closer attention needs to be placed on monitoring where the cars are at all times. Like someone assigned to watch the cars as they are taken from the finish line back to the Staging table and another person assigned to watch the cars as they go from the Staging table to the track.
It would also be good to make sure the crowd is kept well enough away from the cars (and their handlers). Adults (other than race crew) should not be anywhere near the On Deck or Staging areas to prevent the opportunity (temptation) to tweak the car's performance.
grifflew wrote:We had a situation with oil at our District Derby. The rules allowed only dry lubricants, ie: graphite/moly, and were inspected at check in as usual. When running the race, a car was found to have "wet" wheels, the tread surface was covered with some type of oil. The only thing we can think of is, 1. The wheel bores were filled with oil that leaked out during the first run of the car (doubt it) or somehow in the on-deck circle dad applied oil. There was so much it was running down the track. We had to stop the race, clean the track and unfortunately for the Scout, DQ his car. When confronted, the dad said it was "water"
Hopefully, it was not an inspection issue, but that is something that should be looked at for next year's race.
If the kids are handling the cars, then I think that closer attention needs to be placed on monitoring where the cars are at all times. Like someone assigned to watch the cars as they are taken from the finish line back to the Staging table and another person assigned to watch the cars as they go from the Staging table to the track.
It would also be good to make sure the crowd is kept well enough away from the cars (and their handlers). Adults (other than race crew) should not be anywhere near the On Deck or Staging areas to prevent the opportunity (temptation) to tweak the car's performance.
I know it wasn't an inspection issue as the people doing inspections have done quite a few before. We had a last minute venue change due to lower turnout than expected (baseball games, beautiful weather) and it was a much smaller room so it was pretty crowded compared to what we usually have. Because it was crowded, I couldn't keep an eye on what was happening in the on-deck circle. After those 2 cars were DQ's, we held on to the cars until the Scouts actually got to the starting gate, only then were they handed their cars.
