Districts Today

R

resullivan

0
Mar 18, 2013
269
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My son has districts today. He came in first in pack for the 3rd straight year. We wanted to build a new car for district. Usually, I go to a friends house to cut out the car, but I wanted my own scroll saw. Lowes did not have any in stock, so I ordered online. It came Wednesday. We were excited and got it all unpacked but something had come loose and it was knocking like crazy. I was afraid we werent going to get to build a new car. Thursday I returned it back to lowes and luckily they had got some in. I wasnt able to work on the car at all that day. Come Friday, the day before the race, I took half a day off to work on the car. My biggest fear was the paint. Anyway, we finished the body of the car and got it all painted. This morning we put the wheels on and did the alignment. I wished I would have had a couple of extra days to let the paint dry in between coats because we ended up with a few smudges, and the paint still isnt completely dry:

20140314_220847.jpg


20140315_075534.jpg


20140315_081144.jpg


Not bad for a less than 24 hour build.
 
Alright districts are over. I want to say first off that the event was run amazingly. It was held in a closed department store in the mall so the space was huge. The race was run very smoothly.

Now the bad. We got 5th place. We should have been first. It was a freedom track with a god aweful timer. The times were all over the place. There were several heats that were way to fast and several way to slow. The fast ones were all reran. It is anybodys guess who had the fastest car, but here is why I think we were the fastest. I dont have exact times, but our times were about:

Run 1: 3.84
Run 2: 4.02
Run 3: 3.79
Run 4: 3.71

I think our 4th run was the only legitimate time. You can see the variance is rediculous. On our 3rd run we raced the car that came in second. It had times of 3.73 and 3.74 to that point. We beat it by a car and a half. It ran something like a 3.82 which was slow compared to its previous times. The car that came in first was from our pack. At pack we beat it by over .05.

What do you guys think? I believe the winner was in the 3.74 average range.
 
+1 Kinser!

Those times correlate to our 49' BestTrack. Was It a edit: hand release gate? That can add a lot a variance to times. The timer switch can be pressed before the gate drops if pulling the lever to slow.
 
We ran into the exact same thing at our district race last year. My son's times varied from 2.42 to 3.79. It was very easy to see what was happening on the video. When the starter touched the trip lever, the laser gate would trip and start the timer long before the starting pin was dropped. My son's car finished first in all 12 heats. He did get awarded first place but 2nd and 3rd were very questionable. I'm hoping they address this before this years district race. Both my sons qualified this year.
 
I have to agree with IAE, a manual start gate could be all the difference in the world and with variances like you reported this could be the problem.

Anyhow, congratulations on the Outlaw win! Sorry to hear your son did not win the event, still a good finish. Get' em next year!
 
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