Derby Talk

We had our Awana Grand Prix tonight and our family did very well.

My younger son's car (ShockWave) won 1st place in Speed for T&T and my older son's car (Jack Sparrow Escapes) received 4th place in Speed for T&T. I won 1st place in Speed and Design for my Wind Tunnel car in the Open Division. My daughter didn't race this year because of school activities.

Here are photos of the cars.

ShockWave



Jack Sparrow Escapes - We were trying to talk my son into painting the canoe black and then call it the "Black Pearl".



Wind Tunnel - I originally wanted to do a two tone paint job (the outer rim one color and the rest of the body another), but didn't have time. I used a dark red metallic color, very similar to the color of my new Honda Pilot.

GREAT LOOKING CARS

You should be Proud!!!

I am, but more for how much work the boys did on their cars. Each year they do more and more and I do less and less, which is as it should be.

Congratulations and nice cars! You should be proud of those kids, very creative and well done.

Here are some details on the cars.

Axle Locations - ShockWave and Wind Tunnel had drilled holes with extended wheelbase. The canoe used the existing slots.

Shaping - This year we took advantage of the drum sander that my grandmother gave me from my late grandfather's workshop, before she passed away last spring. It was great on sanding the curves of the cars. I even used one of the sanding drums by hand to sand the inner curve of Wind Tunnel. That inner curve was drilled out using a drill press and a forstner bit. Unfortunately, the bit was not long enough to go all the way through the block and even by drilling from both ends, there was still about an inch of wood that remained. Once I cut out the side profile, I had to sand down that area to blend with the rest of the inner curve.

Wheel Prep - Light sanding only with 400 grit wet/dry paper (wet). Original shape was retained.

Axle Prep - Since Awana axles don't have the burr issues that the BSA ones do, we just used 2000 grit wet/dry paper (wet) followed by some Mother's Mag polish.

Axle Alignment - No alignment was done, other than trying to drill the holes in the body accurately for the two cars.

Wheels - 3 wheeler. The wheel/axle with the slowest spin time was used as the raised wheel.

Lube - NyOil II. Applied to axles then wiped off as much as possible. Used a pipe cleaner to apply lube inside wheel bore.

Weights - I totally spaced ordering some tungsten weights, so I got some lead stick on weights at a local hobby store. Weight was concentrated as much to the rear as was possible.

Paint - Kyrlon paints and clear coat for ShockWave. The canoe was just some brushed on acrylic craft paints. For Wind Tunnel, I used DupliColor automotive paint and clear coat. This stuff goes on much thinner than the Krylon paints and dries much faster. Each car was primed first, of course.

There is a lot more that we could have done to squeeze out some extra hundredths or thousandths of a second, but with the success my kids have already had, I felt it really wasn't necessary.

Nice, good job and nice cars, I like the last brownish red one. Our Awana first races were same night, came in first all heats and my daughter won a gold medal. Next set of races are the main ones for trophys we can use the same car but I think we'll build a new one, she is getting older and I'm going to let her to do a bit more work. Anyway back to your success, and one more job well done to your family.

It is actually a dark red metallic. The photo doesn't do it justice. It is close to the color of my new car.




Congratulations on your daughter's results. Your Awana club does racing in two phases?

After another look at the car I edited my post to brownish red, but was too late. Last night was more of a fun night, we can use cars from past years, or spare ones from the club if they don't have one. Next races in the new year are the main races that have to have a new car, or you can run the one from this race if built new for it. The next races then have trophies for speed and best of show.

Not a problem. I edited the photos to make the color closer to reality.


That is an interesting way of doing things. I would think that it would be better to have a new car for the first race and then you can tune it for the next race, based on its performance.


Another construction detail I forgot was on the canoe. While the figurine was store bought, the paddle was made from a chopstick.

Well, we had our final pack race today, as our youngest is crossing over to Boy Scouts

My son got 3rd place for Webelos II. That was a bit surprising since we had to mess with his wheels so much. Our pack rules require that the car be built during the current school year, but it does not prohibit from using a car built for another race, so long as the BSA wheels and axles are used. We used the car he built for our November Awana race, since this time of year is really crazy for me.

The Awana axles are a bit larger in diameter than the BSA ones. We should have filled in the holes and redrilled, but we didn't, so that could have caused us some problems with alignment.

I also forgot that the pack rules require the standard ~4-3/8" wheelbase to be used, but it doesn't require the slots to be used. I should have remembered that, since I rewrote the rules This suprisingly wasn't caught at check-in (our Awana rules allow extended wheelbase). Fortunately, I remembered as I was viewing all of the cars after check-in. A hasty redrilling of the front axle holes ensued and he was in compliance. I didn't want the possibility of him winning something and then there be anyone rasing the wheelbase issue.

Alignment was no where near perfect and moving the front wheels may have caused lube issues (should have cleaned and relubed). Oh well, he still managed to get 3rd place, and he was a very good sport about it all.

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Now about the open division results, which was an "outlaw" race. I took my Wind Tunnel car, slapped some razor wheels and needle axles on it that Santa sent me, and won by a large margin. There was a lot of razzing going on and the start gate operator loaded it on backwards for one heat. Jokingly, I said it will still win. Sure enough, it did. The only heat it lost (to my eldest son of all people ) was when the gate operator loaded it very crooked. We have no awards for the open division, just "braggin rights", so it was all in fun.

At the very end, after the official racing was over, we also did some family challenges. There were several familes with several cars entered (scout and open division). My wife told me that if I beat her, I was sleeping on the sofa. I guess I better get comfy

I like the way the axles hubs shine.

Steve