Recent content by Richard C. Moeur

Greetings from north Phoenix!

Jon, what is your location? I know of a Pack in our Council that has two used tracks (no timers, though) that they are willing to donate to a deserving group.

From a fellow District co-chair, congratulations on a successful event. Are you now to be punished by having the District Derby task assigned to you on a permanent basis? :)

From my experience (6th year as a District co-chair) : fair, thorough, and firm enforcement of clear and objective rules is the best way to minimize problems and make everyone happy. Sure, the out-of-spec folks are temporarily unhappy, but we give them every opportunity within the check-in...

There's one Pack in Four Peaks that has 114 Cub Scouts - biggest unit in the Council in terms of Scout membership. Their approach is to have all-adult car handling, with 4 adults building an assembly line of cars fed to the start line. They were running 25 seconds per heat - an impressive speed...

That was the plan - but I discovered that reportedly that last Council race (before my time) was "memorable" enough that certain key Council staff are still not in favor of the concept. Right now, the focus is on facilitating information sharing between the Districts to improve and strengthen...

We can have the previous heat's boys retrieve their cars, let all four boys for the next heat stage their cars, and have the Boy Scout / MC interview the boy in Lane 1, and still consistently run 50-55 seconds / heat. If you have 20 boys in a rank and run each twice per lane (double the fun!)...

Photos from the event are now available: Car Photos Morning Photos Afternoon Photos Video! Race results are posted as well. (Freedom Track, 29.9' from start pin to finish sensor)

My son and I have used graphite and Krytox, and if properly applied they both work fine. Note that our fastest cars use graphite, with the Krytox cars right up there with them. Plus, a properly-oiled car will be impossible to spot at inspection. That's why we dialed the rules on lube back to...

More rules background: that first year (when I was just a dad in a Class A shirt and not in charge of anything), I noticed that most of the "lively dialogues" between irate parents focused on three issues: a rule that required the use of the "entire" BSA box kit a rule that could be interpreted...

We Seems there's an inference of intent that may not be entirely correct. Personally, I think the 3-wheel car was a creative one, and did indeed meet that year's rules. We didn't want anything, other than to continue requiring cars to have a minimum of 3 wheels touching. The removal of...

That's a creative and unorthodox way to provide 4 wheels - or 8. :) As long as the distance between the farthest wheel centers is less than 4 5/8", it would meet our # of wheels and wheelbase rules. We could modify the rules to say "a minimum of two wheels on each side", but haven't (yet) - and...

Much of my assessment is based on the experiences I had as a Cub Scout and within my son's Pack. We're trying to make it so a boy doesn't have to have the entire armada of aftermarket tools to at least be somewhat competitive, while rewarding the boys who take the effort to properly file and...

Rolling along regarding wheels: When I took over as District PWD chair, I inherited "must have 4 and only 4 wheels", "3 wheels touching", and min/max wheelbase rules, and kept them for the first year. But then I saw a boy who built a really cool 8-wheeled tank (5 wheels raised) have to pull 4...

When my son was a Tiger 6 years ago, we didn't know any better, and he and I stuck the axles in the slots as straight as we could. Turned out the car ran on 3 wheels just due to block warping and a 6-year-old's sense of "straight". Dad did much of the axle work that year (Dunc focused on paint...