I’ve seen race rules that are 3 pages long and set in small type. They cover wheel location, building materials, lubrication, sportsmanship, and even list allowable construction methods.
This is madness.
All this complexity is going to lead to mistakes, arguments, and more problems than you would believe.
Are you putting together a Pinewood Derby race? Charged with assembling a set of rules? You might be wanting to create a bunch of rules designed to ensure with absolute certainty that the kids will build the cars, not the dads. You want to prohibit springs, shaped wheels, changing axle locations, and exotic lubricants. You think this will make the race more fair.
This is the first in a series of articles aimed at race officials. In the series you’ll learn why complicated rules hurt the kids and the integrity of the race.
I’ve put together a store of Pinewood Derby supplies, tools, and resources using Amazon.com. I haven’t tried everything in the store, but I’m carefully adding things that get good reviews or have great specs. When I’ve tried an item, I’ll write a short review in the product description. When you buy one of the items in the store through Amazon, Pinewood Freak gets a small cut.
I’ve seen cars shaped like pencils before, but this is the best one I’ve seen so far.
Derby Talk is a discussion forum for Pinewood Derby. Everything from car building to how to organize and run a race is discussed.
A guy mounted a wireless webcam to his car to get video of it racing down the track. Via Boing Boing
So you’ve got the car shaped, sanded, and painted and you’re getting ready to install the wheels. You know they need to go straight. You know they need to be able to turn freely. But did you know that you should install one of them differently than the others? Your car will be faster if one […]
Those pinewood weights you buy at the craft store aren’t lead and aren’t very dense. Lead is nearly twice as heavy as that stuff. Don’t use it if you want to win. Usually I melt lead bird shot into holes drilled in the car body. It’s an efficient way of weighting the car, but this year […]
Stan Pope has put together a great way to test different wheel and axle configurations without the need for a track or even a car. Got an idea for a new lube you’d like to test? Or wonder what would happen if you installed the wheels at an angle? This rig will do it accurately. Wheels […]