"The Track"

[GravityX]

This past weekend my son had his pinewood derby Scout race. I wanted to show you a glimpse of what the track looked like. Be warned this can be brutal to your eyes and more damaging to your Scout's car. The track does not have a stop section, but rather a crash box. If you happened to be one of the lucky ones your car just bounced back up the track from the way it just came. Many cars were not greeted with such fortune. Bestow your eyes upon all it's glory "The Track"!

 

[Hogans Racing]

Wow! I don't have words for this one! Well I can think of one, SCARY!!

 

[sondo007]

 

[Rocket car]

Is that Frankenstein's table!!!

 

[4wheeldrift]

Unfortunately I think there are a lot of packs out there that have something that looks like this.

We're pretty fortunate to have a track that looks like a wooden version of a besttrack.

We visited another pack over the weekend that had a track that was very similar to your pic GravityX. It was so bad that they didn't use one of the 4 lanes cause it had such a bump that it was guaranteed the car would leave the track.

We ran Jr's derby car down this track and after 3 runs it was done. Jr showed it to me and one of the rear axles looked really bent and I have video on it's last run as it came down and flew off to the side of the track (in what was supposed to be a good lane). I think it hit a leg of a card table, which they had lined up along the length of the track to keep the kids back. How in the world do you bend an axle without breaking the wheel or splitting the body!?

 

[IAE Racing]

Not trying to one-up. track looks decent from the pics outside of the stop section.

 

[GravityX]

Not trying to one-up. track looks decent from the pics outside of the stop section.

The joints in the track were pretty rough. We had no ejections from the track during the run, but the crash box was another story.

 

[quadad]

We used to occassionally race in an open Cub Scout event during a nearby Pack's regular PWD. One of those that is arranged so you buy lunch there and they make a few bucks off of that ... They had the infamous "hill" type stop section, though it was from a Wisconsin perspective "a mountain" ! Cars regularly fell off the far right lane onto the floor.

Sure enough, the year we were first really learning well about rail riding and prep, one of my boys had the fastest car we ever built. I still wasn't race smart though since we went there a week or two before our own Pack race. That boys' car not only fell off the hill a few times (onto the tile floor), it rolled on the floor and crashed into a table leg 8-10' away a couple of times. I pleaded with them to put something down on the floor to catch those cars, but they considered it an act of manhood or something. In fact, they finished their own PWD by running and smashing up all of their cars.

Needless to say, after some rework his car was never quite as fast as before that race. Big lesson learned.

 

[Minions Racing]

Helped a nephew with his pinewood derby car last year. They had an old 2 lane track that would tell you the winner, not the time. Each lane had a wooden peg sticking up in the middle of the rail at the bottom of the track. Sort of like a starting pin but at the bottom of the track. It was attached to a switch somehow so that the first car to hit the peg would win. The scouts were supposed to sit at the end of the track to catch the car because it would go flying into the air after hitting the peg. Every time. Not sure how the car survived. Double elimination tournament so winning cars had to hit that peg quite a few times.

 

[Guest]

Is that Frankenstein's table!!!

HAhahaha! I was thinking Rube Goldberg!

 

[MOFAST]

I think our old beast has you beat. 8 lane track without timer and brutal stop.

 

[MOFAST]

Don't have a good picture of the stop but it was just a 4 inch plywood wall. The small Wolf in the picture is my son, I know he's cute like his Dad. This track has been replaced with a 42 foot best track and Champ timer. I love it!

If you look about where my son's foot is, you can see the joint is raised and abrupt.

 

[ngyoung]

Our district has a decent 8 lane track if it could be assembled properly. It is filthy with graphite and does not have the proper equipment to true up the joints. The leveling legs are all messed up likely from being double threaded several times. Each section is clamped together using those large black binder clips from a home office store instead of real clamps.

Next year I think I am going to take up the cause to see if I can get it the night before to get it assembled properly and cleaned. The connection from the start switch to the finish line is missing as well.

 

[Bullet]

Man I feel lucky after seeing this! I need to look into the tracks more...we have a good 35' Best track for our pack and the council race this weekend was on a brand new 42' Fast Track. These timers don't show the time on the back of the timer...seems like I am always down by the finish line and cant see them. There's got to be a timer that gives times on both sides! lol