The new Scuderia Pinewood F1 car

Ready for the Pinewood Derby race this Saturday.
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Sweeeet. Pinewood derby days... good times, good times.

What, no Marlboro?

EDIT: oh yeah, I forgot, It was Boy Scouts where we learned to Drink and smoke, not Cub Scouts.

 

Cool. Looks like the stickers off one of those lego sets if I'm not mistaken...?

 

That is sweet. I did a pinewood derby car a few months ago with my church. The adults where more excited about their cars then the kids where about theirs hahahah. We had many adults interested in making cars so we had a race for the kids then one for the adults haha.

 

The results are in. Out of 8 races the Scuderia car took 5 1st's, 1 2nd, 1 3rd, and 1 4th. It got the track record for best time out of 48 cars, with a 2.220 second run.

Sadly, it finished 3rd overall. Not a bad day for a first ever outing.

 

With that brilliant a set of results, how was it 3rd overall? Nevertheless, an auspicious beginning!

--Dan

 

Maybe they were running too much downforce. You don't need too much in the straight sectors.... and they're all straight sectors

 

My son & I went a bit "retro" with our Grand Prix F1 "pine wood" car.

Our race was today, and he did well (1st place and two 2nds). He almost had the "best of show" wrapped up, but the judges knew that "Dad" hand painted the authentic Scuderia shields... So I think we lost a point for a bit too much adult help. However, we enjoyed ourselfs a ton.

Congrats on you car.
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The '3rd Overall' finish was dictated by the last 4 races. Those races were the races that the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place finishes were recorded. The top 4 cars made it to the final round, and the final round was 4 races. Each car raced once in each lane of the 4 lane track. Final scores were based on points, the winner being the car with the lowest number of points. 1 point for 1st, 2 points for 2nd, etc. My sons car had 10 points, two cars tied for 1st with 9 points.

 

Our pinewood derby is this friday... We are ready for battle....
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I remember making those cars back in cub scouts, but my dad was mechanically inept and my cars were pretty crude... out of sheer curiosity, what makes a good PWD car vs a bad one? Weight distribution, graphite on the axles, and does aero come into it?

 

all that and they say areo does not mean anything, but I suppose that helps when it comes to the weight distribution.

 

I guess what I am asking is, what weight distro is ideal? Front heavy, back heavy, etc?

 

actually the weight has to be just in front of the rear axle. that distributs most of the weight to the back and also prevents the hopping of the front.

 

Making sure it rolls straight helps more than anything. If it bounces between the middle rail it slows it down a bunch. The key to that is getting the wheels on semi straight or symetrical.

Ours is this Friday and the kids are excited about there cars. I cut them out with the jig saw, they sanded and help paint them. Then I cut out some old vinyl racing graphics up into stripes and they put them on. I held the wheels and let them hammer the nails in.

 

Reubens was driving?

 

There are many spots on the web that show how to make fast cars.

In a nut shell

1. balance point of car should be about 1 inch in front of rear axle. Majority of weight should be in final 25% of car. This means, most of the wood should be gone. Wedges and low profile cars do well.

2. Wheels should be to the back of the car.

3. Axles should be straight.

4. Run on 3 wheels. One front wheel up.

5. Good axle and wheel prep is critical.

6. Get the right graphite.

My son has managed to win 2 of the last four pinewood races (for his rank) and placed in the other two. He won overall 1 time. He actually does build the car, I do help with some, but not as much as some "helpful" dads.

I have attached a picture of the last race. His car is second from the left. The car on the far right was a different rank, but it took the overall race results. It was a highly engineered car.

Our pack is quite competitive at the district level.
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