Graphite questions/time

[AUPatrick]

We had our district race and my son's came in first in the Wolves and first overall. His times for all 8 races in order were:

Wolves race:

3.15
3.192
3.124 (our fastest of the day)
3.178

Overall race

3.15
3.142
3.128
3.133

His time (other than the 3rd race in the Wolves) seemed to be getting faster as the day went on. Is that because we didn't work the graphite in good enough at the start of the race? After putting the graphite in the morning of the race we did a couple of hard "flicks" on the wheels, but that was it. What do you suggest to work the graphite in better?

We ended up winning the Wolves by a good margin but won the overall by .01 seconds.

 

[Kinser Racing]

Burnish it in with a cotton swab shaft from DD4H.

 

[quadad]

I wonder if you didn't have too much graphite in there ? There are HUGE differences in your first four runs. Was this on a 4-lane track or ? Your times have a lot less variation in the overall championship set.

In addition to what Kinser said, we always used to fully lube and then take a run down the practice track before packing the cars up.

 

[AUPatrick]

this was on a four lane 42 foot track. I never thought about possibly putting too much graphite in the wheels.

Sorry for the stupid question but was does "Burnish it in with a cotton swab shaft from DD4H" mean?

 

[quadad]

Not a stupid question. This basically means to work some graphite in to the bore using the soft material fancy sticks that John sells for wheel bore work. In other words, load up the end of the stick with graphite, chuck it in a drill, push the wheel on the stick, run the VS drill on a modest speed and move the wheel back and forth. We did stuff like that over a spare Cool Whip bowl because you can use the fallen particles for rubbing into the body, etc. People have historically done this with pipe cleaners, but you have to be VERY careful about the wired center of the pipe cleaner scratching the wheel bore. John's bore prep kit sells plastic caps for that reason, or just carefully clip them off and be very careful insering/removing a pipe cleaner should you use one. With John's sticks, you don't have this worry (but you pay for it).

Sometimes the graphite will clump and you can actually hear a 'pop' when the car is going down the track. Always take into account how many heats you are going (if you know) to be running in applying graphite. Only use as much as you really need.
I asked about the track as I wondered if there was a bad lane there somewhere. Wouldn't expect a Best Track to cause that much variation though.

 

[Kinser Racing]

Wouldn't expect a Best Track to cause that much variation though.

It's the graphite that's causing most of the variation. Or, poor track set up. It's not that uncommon really.

 

[AUPatrick]

thanks. For next year I will purchase some of the tools on here. I know our times are no where near what you guys do, but considering the rules require stock wheels and axles (polishing ok), no extended wheel base, dry graphite only, four wheels touching, how does our time stack up? yeah, I know it was good enough for first in our district, but was wondering if we can improve on the times for next year and what is a reasonable time with those rules?

We ran a rail rider with 2.5 on the rear wheels and 1.5 on front. Had COM at 3/4 inch in front of rear axle. Had right at 5.0 with 3.5 of tungsten.

 

[tosawylo]

We run a 6 lane 42' Best Track at our local races. We have two groups back to back using the track. Up until last our last race it was graphite only. Looking back on our stats for the last few years we have found that the track actually gets faster through the day as more graphite falls onto the track. I ran a car in the first race and the second this year. Both cars had similar prep and builds and in testing on the clean track ran very close times and their averages were very close. the track is cleaned before each race. Their was at least 10 others that ran cars in both races and we found that the track times increased by as much as .015 on average from the first to the second race. The only reason we could come up with was that all the graphite that fell off the cars made the track slicker and therefore a little faster.

 

[Quicktimederby]

Graphite on the track will sloe your car down. When my cars get a even slight build up of graphite on them from the track it will slow the car down as much a .013.I would say that the reason the are picking up speed is that they are shedding the excessive graphite in the wheel bore allowing for quicker speed.

We run a 6 lane 42' Best Track at our local races. We have two groups back to back using the track. Up until last our last race it was graphite only. Looking back on our stats for the last few years we have found that the track actually gets faster through the day as more graphite falls onto the track. I ran a car in the first race and the second this year. Both cars had similar prep and builds and in testing on the clean track ran very close times and their averages were very close. the track is cleaned before each race. Their was at least 10 others that ran cars in both races and we found that the track times increased by as much as .015 on average from the first to the second race. The only reason we could come up with was that all the graphite that fell off the cars made the track slicker and therefore a little faster.