A successful Scout season this year. We had a blast

[jatofau1]

Thank you all for supporting this forum and helping all the new and novice builders.

And a special thanks to Ballistic Bob for hosting and leading the Alpine District races here in the Seattle area. Bob is working hard to promote pinewood derby racing. It was a great event. All the kids had a fun and enjoyed the event. In addition, Bob is helping us novice builders learn and get faster.

My kids had a great pinewood derby season. My Tiger took first in the den, second in the pack. My Bear took first in the den and first in the pack.

We held our Districts races yesterday. I was really sweating the races and needed wheels for districts and MA. Thanks to John, he was able to ship me wheels that I received on Friday. I did a quick prep and we were able to squeak out a 1st place and third place finish. My Bear finished 1st and the Tiger finished 3rd. I built a car for my daughter who got 1st for the siblings. We would not have finished first without the Mid America wheels made by John. There were a several really fast cars. A few heats were full out drag races won by the slimmest of margins.

Thank you all for support and a special thanks to Derby Dad for Hire. All cars are built with John's speed supplies and parts.

Regards,

Joe

 

[derbydentist]

Nice job guys! Cars look sweet! Trophies look sweet and the kids look happy! What else is there? Haha. How do you do your car covers? I am still trying to get my brain to stop wanting to paint. If you have ladder style bodies how does it not look indented where the underneath rungs are located when you put the top covering on? Or do you have a thin piece of wood glued to the top for a cover?

 

[wags2633]

Great job! Sounds like the competition is steep. Your daughter's matching shirt and car theme is classic--Team Moana!

 

[jatofau1]

Great job! Sounds like the competition is steep. Your daughter's matching shirt and car theme is classic--Team Moana!

LOL! I did not realize she was wearing a Moana shirt. That is classic.

 

[jatofau1]

Nice job guys! Cars look sweet! Trophies look sweet and the kids look happy! What else is there? Haha. How do you do your car covers? I am still trying to get my brain to stop wanting to paint. If you have ladder style bodies how does it not look indented where the underneath rungs are located when you put the top covering on? Or do you have a thin piece of wood glued to the top for a cover?

The cars are ladder bodies with two 1/4 in balsa cross members. I do not add a wood cover to the body. I just stick on the covers or monokote.

It takes practice to keep the covers from looking indented. Your cross members need to be aligned with the top body of the car and sanded with the correct contour of the body. Then just stretch the skin over the body and press the skin on to the cross members.

I use LG adhesive printing paper with a Cannon Photo printer for the scout covers. Very easy and does not take much time. Plus you can find make or download any graphic you want. You don't have to be an artist. I us monokote for my adult bodies. It is lighter than the printing paper.

 

[DerbyDad4Hire]

Great job. That would have been a fun race to watch. Great tips on the covers too.

 

[Jimmy & his 2 Kids]

Joe that is awesome to hear! And smiles all around. Great job dad! Glad you shared this with us all.

 

[Thinkin'Bout Racin]

Nice job!!! The kids look really happy! I am sure these are some memories that they will always have.

Like Derby dentist, I too am struggling with the idea of not painting ...thanks for the ideas. we may have to try something different for covers next year?

 

[derbydentist]

The cars are ladder bodies with two 1/4 in balsa cross members. I do not add a wood cover to the body. I just stick on the covers or monokote.

It takes practice to keep the covers from looking indented. Your cross members need to be aligned with the top body of the car and sanded with the correct contour of the body. Then just stretch the skin over the body and press the skin on to the cross members.

I use LG adhesive printing paper with a Cannon Photo printer for the scout covers. Very easy and does not take much time. Plus you can find make or download any graphic you want. You don't have to be an artist. I us monokote for my adult bodies. It is lighter than the printing paper.

Thanks for sharing that info - I will have to give it a try

 

[gdurban]

I see you use the new GEE fenders. Do you think they gave you the edge? Did your competition have fenders?

I have not added fenders yet and always wonder how much improvement they provide.

And congratulations!! Our districts are this weekend and I hope to match your success.

 

[jatofau1]

None of the competition ran fenders. Yes, the fenders made a difference.

The big difference was the wheels and the fenders. The wheels gave us a big jump out of the gate. I could not see the start of races because I was busy with helping to stage the cars. I could occasionally catch the ending. Ballistic told me that our cars were way ahead of the other cars out of the gate. The fenders kept me slightly in front of the second place car by less than .003. I noticed that the second place car would catch up at the end. The other car had a better drill job and wheel prep. The pros always recommend full fenders on the cars if the rules allow fenders.

We used GEE fenders over the past two years and we have been very successful. They are great. I will be running GEE fenders on my box stock cars in the Cinco DeMayo race. It will be interesting to see how the cars perform against the rest of the field. Some folks will build there own fenders. I will eventually try to build fenders too. But with the advice of my friend Ballistic, he recommend that I spend the time working on perfecting my wheel prep instead of spending the time building fenders. So I will continue to use GEE fenders until I perfect my wheel prep. Then I will experiment with home made fenders vs. GEE fenders.

Also, I have to say that those Mid America Wheels that John makes are awesome. Last year at MA is noticed that a few cars got the jump on use out of the gate. I did not read the rules last year for MA closely so I did no use light wheels or fenders. We did surprisingly well. We had a third place finish in the Wolf division.

This year I decided to run the light weight wheels and fenders. The cars we built for districts and MA are the fastest cars we have ever built by a huge margin. The cars are .08 faster than the cars we ran at the pack meeting. The cars we ran at the Pack were considered very fast for scout cars with graphite. I know the competition is going to be stiff this year at MA so it will be fun to see how fast everyone runs.

Good luck to you at Districts. Let us know how you do.