Derby Trivia for Race MC?

[gpraceman]

The very first PWD used an electronic system to determine the winner.

[drathbun]

Really? Do you have details on what sort of system it was, or a link? That's certainly interesting, I would not have expected that.

[gpraceman]

Really? Do you have details on what sort of system it was, or a link? That's certainly interesting, I would not have expected that.

It used switches, doorbell coils, flashlight bulbs and was battery powered.

There's an electrical diagram and photos of it in the book Pinewood! The story of the Pinewood Derby. There's lots of other information and photos in that book about the first race.

[Darin McGrew]

Pioneer Clubs calls their event a Pine Car Derby:
http://www.pioneerclubs.org/events.pinecar.php" target="_blank

[whodathunkit]

This web site also has some pinewood derby trivia also.
http://www.funtrivia.com/en/subtopics/P ... 66678.html" target="_blank

[BallBoy]

Here are a few little tidbits of information:

- 5 oz. is the weight of 56 1/2 pennies
- BSA wheels and axles out of the box weigh about 1/2 oz, or 10% of the weight of a 5 oz car
- The Guiness World Record for the longest track is 263 ft 2 ¼” and was built in Wisconsin in June of 2010. Cars took about 20 seconds to make it down the track.

[FatSebastian]

5 oz. is the weight of 56 1/2 pennies

...minted after 1982.

[ciodude]

- The Guiness World Record for the longest track is 263 ft 2 ¼” and was built in Wisconsin in June of 2010. Cars took about 20 seconds to make it down the track.

What about the loop tracks? Recently I saw a jump section where the cars shoot through flames to try to reconnect with the track on the other side.

[whodathunkit]

In the 8 car bulk sets first sold by Betacrafts what was the suggest track lenth?
seen in the suggested track plan that was not to scale. ( 31' 9")

Here is a good one: Your official car number must appear on bouth sides of
the car just aft the cockpit. (in the older rules!)
why is rule no longer today?
OR why is graphfite or dry lubes used on the cars today and not back then?
Or in what year.. Was it when asked to consider making it legal to use
oil or grease on the axels. (Summer of 1961)
And what was the price for the first single Betacrafts PWD kit.. (49 cents)

Or when did the price change from $2.75 to $2.95 for these older 8 car bulk kits. (fall of 1957)
Or what was the cost for the frist track plans,starting and finshline mechanisems. First seen in the
Oct 1954 issue of Boy's Life. (15 cents.) by requesting catalog 6-205

[drathbun]

- The Guiness World Record for the longest track is 263 ft 2 ¼” and was built in Wisconsin in June of 2010. Cars took about 20 seconds to make it down the track.

I had seen this before.

Link: http://triblocal.com/gurnee/community/s ... ld-record/" target="_blank

Although there is a youtube video that claims they're pending certification for setting a new record at over 500 feet.

[PeterT]

I use two machines at every derby - one runs GPRM and RaceReplay, the other runs a looping powerpoint slideshow which includes photos of cars, photos from the prior year's derby, comics scraped off the web, logos of our corporate event sponsors, as well as derby facts. I've stripped out everything but the facts and posted them here:
Just the Facts

I suspect I sourced many of our "derby facts" from the same locations others linked to earlier in this thread. Don't forget that your own pack can be a great source of "derby facts" - just get hold of last year's data set if you can!

The full show is about 80-90 slides with automatic timing and looping. The "facts" page use basic powerpoint animation so that the question appears, then about 10 seconds elapses, then the answer. I was trying to mimic the REAL slideshows they played before movies started (well at least ten years ago, today around here they play video advertisements)

While our facility has two built in projectors, they both have to show the exact same video feed. We setup both machines next to each other. During racing the GPRM machine feeds the video. During registration and during any other downtimes (crashes, between races and finales, etc) then the second machine takes over. I leave the second machine on and looping - all i need to do is move the video cable back and forth between the machines. I'm not sure I would setup a second screen to run at the same time as the derby as it might be too much of a distraction from the event.

As a side note, I use a small mp3 player hooked up to the facility's audio system to play music during the downtimes as well (built the playlist this year based on a thread somewhere else on DT).

As far as finding good comics goes, as always Google is your friend!

Greg Craven's "The Buckets" strip had a great series from March 2009, which is now unfortunately no longer online. These are probably the best, if you can find a source for them.

I'll certainly be updating the slideshow for next year with some of the additional ideas others have added here!

[FatSebastian]

As far as finding good comics goes, as always Google is your friend!

Although not foolproof, at least use Safe Search settings when searching for derby-related imagery. Sadly, there are unscrupulous people who will tag images with "Pinewood Derby" hoping to warp some little boy's mind (or Dad's!).

[PeterT]

Well, I have safesearch ON, so now you're making me wonder . I think I'll just leave it on.

[drathbun]

Greg Craven's "The Buckets" strip had a great series from March 2009, which is now unfortunately no longer online. These are probably the best, if you can find a source for them.

I do have them, and was going to post them here since I could not find a copy on this site yet.

[rpcarpe]

youtube has video for the long track


https://youtu.be/SxFosR5tjE0