COMMON SENSE

[DerbyDad4Hire]

This time of year my phone rings off the hook and I do my best to talk to everyone. I have wasted way too many calls about putting a pinewood derby car on a treadmill. That ranks up there with bending your rears axles. For you new builders it is important to rely on your common sense when sifting the growing pile of information that is so bad it appears to be some kind of spoof material. The "Engineer" in this particular video makes one think that it is easier to set up a treadmill to test your car on than making a makeshift tuning board. Anyone can make a tuning board in less than 5 minutes. Not to mention what the treadmill is doing to the tread of the wheels.

Please also take a second before you go pounding on all your axles to get them all bent creating a tuning nightmare. What is easier, figuring out which wheel is turning your car when all the axles are bent or pushing the rears in at a cant and having 1 bent axle to steer?

One last thing to you jokers that race at this level and yet still push that gimmick garbage, I am going to send you a bill for my time of having to help people correct the mess you put them in. Quit lying to people just to make a buck or because the goof selling the stuff is your buddy. You do not use the stuff so quit telling people you do.

 

[Resophonic Racing]

word

 

[SoGone]

+1

 

[W racing]

Hello Reso and SoGone and DD. Great to run into on the boards!

John,

I always say. If it is good enough for DerbyDad it is good enough for me. Thanks for making a great place to hang out on the web and for making excellent products that are unsurpased anywhere.

- Eric

 

[Resophonic Racing]

Hello Reso and SoGone and DD. Great to run into on the boards!

John,

I always say. If it is good enough for DerbyDad it is good enough for me. Thanks for making a great place to hang out on the web and for making excellent products that are unsurpased anywhere.

- Eric

W

How have you been old friend. Would love to see a W creation on the track again one day. You got me through my rookie season and helped me achieve my Sub 3 badge in the ole days.

 

[W racing]

Reso,

Doing well. Great to hear from you. A W creation could happen. Miss racing with everyone. Best Wishes - Eric

 

[oskiwow]

I spent about 2 years combing through boards and buying weird stuff that didn't pan out at all in testing -- secret plans w/ secret lubes, magic straighteners and benders, etc. When I tried that stuff, our cars were at best middling, or we'd eke out a win more through luck than through solid building.

This was the very first board that I came to where there wasn't any pretense or folks pushing products with a hard sell or anything like that. There was good advice and more importantly, proof that the practical application of what was said gave results. There's not one bit of advice that I've received here that didn't immediately translate to concrete results on the track *if* I applied the advice correctly. Our speed this year improved by a full 0.3 seconds from last year, and better still, we were consistent in our improvement -- we could reproduce the results without difficulty.

That to me is the mark of both good product and solid advice from a community. The builders here are brothers -- good, honest people with a healthy spirit of competition.