Our track, districts and our boys using it

[FatSebastian]

Yes, we have a “Carburation Night”. We disable the start gate and don't set up the timer.

That's a cool name for it, Husker (does anyone still build cars with carburetors anymore? ).

Is it fair to our Scouts that they're not allowed to test?

When phrased like this, I think it is fair (what GPRM said). At the same time, if you run your pre-District testing like your Carburetion Night (e.g., no timer), I believe that few would argue that your unit took unfair advantage. It would allow racer to identify serious problems with their cars (rear-end wiggles, unintended rail contact, etc.) without excessive fine tuning on the District track unavailable to other units.

[doct1010]

IMO it boils down to competitive advantage. How much of an edge does having track offer and are you willing to share that advantage. Similar in sentiment to the thread which asked "how much info do you share with local comp?". Cars making it to districts are the fastest in their respective packs, one could assume they should show well on most tracks. Can having access to track alter outcome? Or will the best builders and fastest cars prevail regardless? In my own experience, if one can build for a smooth Piantedosi wood chances are good it will perform well on aluminium, assuming no major anomalies to joints or rail. But question remains, how much of an advantage is it, (whether large or small) and are you willing to share it?

[psycaz]

Since we are talking about a Al track here, do any of the other packs have an Al track?

If so, then how much of an advantage is it really? A well setup AL track is a well setup AL track. There might be slight differences in them, but a car running well on one will run well on the other.

Why should their boys suffer because they are volunteering their time and effort. If others are allowing test and tune on what they have access to, then they should as well.

At worst, they could, as suggested, open a carb night for anyone to come to. That or see if anyone else has a track that is similar and borrow theirs so the boys can carb night on that. Won't be the exact track that they will be racing on, but still give them the benefits of testing.

Just hate to completely penalize the boys for being ambitious enough to raise the funds to acquire a nice track and then offering to run districts on it.

[stang68]

If this Track belongs to the Pack they should be able to test on it whenever they like.We use our Best Track every year at District but our Pack use it whenever they need to.We do allow every pack to borrow it.If it was me i would not hesitate to allow the track owners access to it.I would let the District PWD chairman know up front.

[FatSebastian]

Packs that are not hosting Districts would probably would let their Cubs do testing on their tracks. Am I to refuse our Scouts testing time because our track is being used at Districts?

The question seems to hinge on a presumption that District competitors "probably" have access to their Pack's track before the District race, but to what level has this presumption been affirmed? We are no longer in an area where there is a district-wide race, but when we were, we were never offered an opportunity to practice on our Pack track after our Pack race, nor was I privy to the fact that other units were doing this. And it made perfect sense to us why this was not happening: it was a terrific burden to set up and take down the Pack's track in terms of time, labor, and space.

But question remains, how much of an advantage is it, (whether large or small) and are you willing to share it?

I appreciate DocT's perspective on this. I think there may be little question that access to some track can offer a tremendous advantage to a racer who knows how to capitalize on it (e.g., Team Sporty). Now, for a scout race, does access to the official District track provide a significantly greater advantage versus a different track?

[Stan Pope]

Now, for a scout race, does access to the official District track provide a significantly greater advantage versus a different track?

Yes, at the "top end", where the "almost got a trophy" are separated from the "got a trophy" racers, tuning on the "official track" is advantageous. (Wooden) Piantedosi vs. Freedom vs. Best in their varioius lengths have slightly different "top end" performance factors. While it is true that a good car can run well on any of the three types, that "good car" can be tuned to better performance on any of the three at the cost of performance on the other two.

For those participants whose packs support them to the point of providing a test and tune time, use of a track of the "official district race" type can be decisive.

[OneTimeRunner]

I'll be honest. If I had the District track at my house, I'd have it set up and tuning our cars between now and the time I had to pack it up for districts. But if anyone else asked to use it, and it wasn't a big inconvenience for me, I'd have to say yes. If having that many people over at my house got to be a problem, then I would have to set some limits (actually, I'd have to set some more limits. I already have to limit my time on PWD, or the Mrs. gets upset).

I think you should let your cubs use the track.

I don't think you're obliged to go out of your way to let other cubs use the track, but I also don't think you should make it a "my pack only" situation.

There are two different ways to have an advantage. One is to get it, the other is to keep your competition from getting it. In my opinion, PWD is the opportunity to teach kids how to do their best, and getting every advantage they can GET is part of that. Teaching them how to keep others from gaining an advantage is beyond the scope of PWD.

I think you can get the answer to your problem if you ask yourself:

What am I teaching them if I let my cubs use the track?
What am I teaching them if I don't let my cubs use the track?
What am I teaching them if I allow others cubs to use the track?
What am I teaching them if I don't allow others to use the track?
What am I teaching them if I let my cubs use the track, and invite the others to come and use it too?

I'm not in your situation, so I can't even begin to answer these questions for you. I, and everyone else on this board, can tell you how they would answer, but it's up to you to decide which lessons you want to teach your cubs.

Just make sure that they're really learning the lesson you intend to teach.

[FatSebastian]

Yes, at the "top end", where the "almost got a trophy" are separated from the "got a trophy" racers, tuning on the "official track" is advantageous.

If I had the District track at my house, I'd have it set up and tuning our cars between now and the time I had to pack it up for districts. But if anyone else asked to use it, and it wasn't a big inconvenience for me, I'd have to say yes.

My impression was that allowing access for racers outside his own Pack would be a very big inconvenience due to space and time constraints, and thereby infeasible and unrealistic. Accepting that constraint, I suspect Husker raised the question being concerned about some appearance of impropriety. Adding to OTR's list of questions, imagine a scenario where Husker's Pack sweeps the District races (due to the "got a trophy" advantage that Stan cites), after which it becomes known that his unit tuned their cars using the official track:

How would other units feel, and which of the aforementioned justifications might be satisfying to them (if any)?
What would be the risk to the reputation of Husker's unit and the reputation of his charter organization (if any)?
What might the fallout be (if any)?
Do the benefits outweigh the risks?

[doct1010]

The host pack will always enjoy an advantage (I trust Stan's assessment that it is considrable at highest levels), how they chose to manage that advantage is an individual decision. (Unless district supplies track, rare in my experience.) Is the advantage justified compensation for hosting? Does it come with the territory? In almost all sport there is a home field advantage.

Short of inviting entire district to his home (not likely) Husker is faced with a unenviable situ. To satisfy the many (district) he must deprive the few (home pack).

[FatSebastian]

Is the advantage justified compensation for hosting? Does it come with the territory?

Yes, thanks Doc, that clarifies my point: is it expected that Husker's unit would do this?

For example, if Husker, as keeper of the Pack's track, set up the Pack's track at home before the Pack race to let his own son(s) tune up, would not most / all in his Pack feel that this was an unfair advantage for his son(s)? One could argue that it is justified compensation for being the Pack's track-keeper, although I doubt the other Pack parents would buy into that explanation, partly because that level of compensation was not agreed to in advance with them.

So do the other units in Husker's district expect that his Pack will enjoy a significant "home field advantage"?

The closest experience I personally have was organizing a small, non-scout race: there was no track or scale, so I supplied our personal test track and personal scale. Now I owned the track and our family was free to do whatever we wanted with it, but in this case we opted to not track-tune as usual because we had offered it for the actual race. (Nor did we use the "official" scale for the same reason.) Instead we simply roll tested on a ramp. Of course the stakes were not nearly as high as a District derby, but in the end, my kid came in 1st place and was glad to have won a small cash purse (about the value of an engraved trophy).

I can't answer Husker's question, but I can say I was much more comfortable discussing the win having avoided the use of our track before that race. And in the end, being comfortable with our win was more important to us than the win itself.

[Stan Pope]

Don't overstate my observations ... pitting two or three very good builders, one having access to "the track" and the others having access to a track with different specs, the one with access to "the track" will have an advantage, although it is not necessarily insurmountable. Tuning will likely squeeze a few ms. out of his car. It just shifts the odds more in favor of "access".

My experience at district races with a fairly competitive bunch of packs has been that age-group 1st and 2nd place torphies tend to go to the boys whose mentors are "proven builders." 4th and 5th place trophies often go to the boys whose mentors are still "finding their legs" but are well short of mastering the art. My feeling is that "home track advantage" will sometimes shuffle the standings, but it is heavily dependent on the builder's ability to adapt.

There is an additional component to "home track advantage" ... my grandsons' pack track has a "built-in bias" for Right DFW wheels over Left DFW wheels... So, even the selection of pack reps to district tended to favor the racers who ran Right DFW. Not 100%, of course ... my grandsons (and their mentors) were not aware of that bias and their cars lost a bit of ground due to rumbling along the glue band that had oozed out from under the left side of half of the center rails. But they still had enough of "the right stuff" to prevail.

Other tracks may have nicks and dings etc that bias them toward more toe-in so that cars tuned to a near-perfect and otherwise identical track may suffer.

[Husker]

I don't know the exact history of our track but we have provided out track at least 5 of the last 10 years for Districts. We haven't offered it up to District bound racers. Prior to last year, I don't remember there being a Carb Night. There isn't an expectation of us getting the track out for testing and I won't be making the offer. However, I would honor a request. I would allow our Carb Night set up, no gate or timer.

I think we will make changes for next year and offer to have our track available for a few hours for a Carb Day at the hobby store a week prior to Districts, again with the Carb Night restrictions.

We're going to greatly add to our Pack race. We will currently have a Carb night for a Tuesday night den meeting, registration and check in on Friday night, Race of Champions of Saturday. I would like to add an open night of racing for the following Tuesday night den meeting. Our Scouts enjoy impromptu racing as much as the Race of Champions, maybe more. Anyone that is Districts bound can test again on the following Tuesday as well as the hobby shop Carb Day.


From the Indy 500 web site:

Carb Day - Known for many years as "Carburetion Day," and shortened only in fairly recent years simply to "Carb Day," it refers to the day on which cars qualified for the starting field are given the opportunity to practice in "Race Day trim," as opposed to the less economical setups required for out-and-out speed during time trials. A major portion of this used to involve adjustment to the carburetors, but even after the introduction of fuel injection in the late 1940s, the original term "carburetion runs" continued to be used. For the record, the stock-block Ford-powered Lotus cars of Jim Clark and Dan Gurney in 1963 were the last to actually usecarburetors on Carburetion Day.

[FatSebastian]

Husker, thanks for the update regarding your intentions and future plans. IMO your suggested approach sound reasonable, well balanced, and thoughtful, considering the circumstances. Oh, and thanks for the history on Carb Day.

[Husker]

I meant to thank everyone for their insight and input. I always enjoy a lively, respectful debate.

FatSebastian, glad you like the Carb Day history. I knew you would!