Emergency Advice

[gdurban]

Hey Guys,

My son's Council race is tomorrow. From advice here, I wanted to add the GEE Diamond fenders. DD4H got them to me on time (thanks for that!!). I got both the lead and trailing fenders. I got them ready to install and decided to weigh everything before I installed.

My original weight was 5.033 oz and this was good for pack and districts. This includes a 0.06 cube of putty to allow trim if scale is different. I removed the trim and added the fenders and I am at 5.125. So, I am over weight. If I remove the trailing fenders, I am right back at 5.037, so might be ok, but I have no trim weight if scale is different.

So, my options as I see them:
1) forget about the fenders and run with car that got us here.
2) run with just the lead fenders and hope the scale difference does not require a trim
3) pop out one of my 1/4" tungsten cubes to reduce weight, add all fenders and add back enough trim to make weight.

What do you guys recommend?

 

[gdurban]

And unfortunately, my 1/4" cubes are CA'ed in place, so some risk of damage if I pop one out.

 

[derbydude]

i would probably just leave it

 

[derbydentist]

Any place to remove wood? I went without the trailing fenders this year. Does your race allow anything over 5.000 ounces! Mine didn't allow 5.001. - so you may want to see how detailed their scale is if possible before making a decision.

 

[gdurban]

No place to remove wood. I think their scale only has 0.1 oz res, so I have gotten away with up to 5.05 and I am just under that now.

 

[aircooled]

If you have a soldering gun you can heat the cube/cubes and get them out. Can you post a picture of your car that would help.

 

[gdurban]

If you have a soldering gun you can heat the cube/cubes and get them out. Can you post a picture of your car that would help.

The center area that is filled with balsa is not covered with monokote. There is not enough balsa to make any difference if I removed that.

 

[gdurban]

I'm going to leave it alone. Save the fenders for another time. Thanks for the responses.

 

[speed bump]

How close do u think the race will be? If ( that's a big word) you think you are good to go with a margin to spare just roll with it. If you think you need a little bit more speed go with fenders. But you are probably doing the right thing just leave it along. Next time never glue in weights use aluminum tape to hold them in place. You can always remove and add as needed. JS.

 

[gdurban]

How close do u think the race will be? If ( that's a big word) you think you are good to go with a margin to spare just roll with it. If you think you need a little bit more speed go with fenders. But you are probably doing the right thing just leave it along. Next time never glue in weights use aluminum tape to hold them in place. You can always remove and add as needed. JS.

Yep, learned my lesson on the cubes. Tape it is from now on.

I'm not sure how close the race will be. We beat our main competition from our District but there was another guy that beat us at Council last year. Don't know we have enough to get him. But we will find out...let em roll!!!

 

[speed bump]

Go get them but as all ways have FUN. Let us know how it turns out. Good luck.

 

[Rocket car]

If it were me, I would remove the balsa and tape over the entire bottom.

Lacquer thinner or nail polish remover will help with the removal of the cubes.

 

[Pacfanweb]

Next time, just use 2 sided tape to hold the weights in. Much easier to get them back out, and they will NOT fall out, either.

 

[TWarwick07]

hope it was fast for you and i agree, leave the car as is and use the fenders on the next project

 

[derbydentist]

Howd it go gdurban?

 

[gdurban]

Hey guys, Thanks again for all the input. I ended up leaving the car as it was. My son got 2nd in the Bears pack race and then 2nd in the finals to the same guy. He went home with 2 trophies, a smile on his face and a great 1-on-1 day for the two of us. This makes me a happy Dad. I'm a bit disappointed in the 2nd place (explained below) but happy because my son had a great time.

They implemented a very strange race approach that I have not heard of before. They had an 8 lane, 49 ft Best Track. In the interest of time, they decided to run each car in a randomly selected 4 of the 8 lanes.......what, really??? I was excited when I first saw the track because it looked so much better than last year's Council setup. But, after a few races, it was clear there were a couple notably bad lanes. Lane 4 had cars bounding out of the lane resulting an numerous reruns. Lane 7 had an obvious dent in the first flat section. In addition, they had a manual starting gate resulting in several slow starts.

Basically, if you got lanes 4 or 7 or a bad start, you could take a big penalty. This approach just does not seem fare by any measure. The idea in all races I've been involved with was to have each car run in each lane to remove lane variation as a factor (at least as much as you can). I will admit that after 8 races and almost as many restarts, the 1st place car would probably beat us on a good track but it is hard to know because I don't know what lanes he ran versus my son's car. In head to head races, he beat us by a car length some times and we beat him by a car length in others. The variation was crazy.

Oh well, my son has his trophies and we look forward to next year.

By the way, do any of you know what a good time on a 49 foot track is? Our car ran a 3.09 sec on a 42 ft track at Districts. Our best time on the 49 ft track was something like 3.52 sec. I'm trying to figure out if the car was performing the same or if we messed it up in re-prep. Hard to know without same length track. Maybe those fenders would have done it for us. LOL.

 

[gdurban]

By the way, their scale was measuring everyone heavy. So, without trim weight, I would have been in trouble. I definitely would have needed to remove a cube and add back putty for trim.

I had my tool box, and helped a bunch of scouts get their cars to weight.

 

[derbydentist]

Oh man that's awesome good job guys! That track situation does sound rough (literally). I would have been upset about the way that was ran. Although I am jealous you guys get to have a council race.

 

[Jimmy & his 2 Kids]

Your son has trophies and a smile and you both look forward to next year. Nuff said! Great job man and thanks for posting!

 

[B_Regal Racing]

If it were me, I would remove the balsa and tape over the entire bottom.

Lacquer thinner or nail polish remover will help with the removal of the cubes.

I would too. My cars are not "good enough"; they are made to the best of my ability, as many tweaks as I can squeeze in before a race. I would not leave speed on the table, BUT, at the end of the day, you should do what you are comfortable with doing. Its always the best approach...