Hello and Many Thanks

[Nerds]

I just wanted to thank all of you for this site and all of your generous information. My boys are both Webelos and just finished the season with a 1st and 2nd at the Council Championship. For the year, they went 1 & 2 at den, pack overall, district, Council Webelos, and Council Overall. I've been reading much of this site looking for a little more speed and sincerely thank you all for sharing your experience.

Unfortunately, this last race was a complete cluster from the minute we got there. I think every kid and parent was aggravated in some way. But it seems to be a theme this year from what I've been reading. They made us increase our wheel gap so the plastic measuring tool would fit in the gap. I was hot, and asked him to show me in the rules where you have to have a certain wheel gap. The guy running the race wouldn't open the rules even though they were sitting right on the table. But not wanting to deny the boys an opportunity to race, I increased the gap and let it go, knowing the cars would be loose. Luckily we were still able to pull off the win. I won't bore you with the rest of the story, but needless to say, it was not a good event.

Thanks again, you guys are great!

 

[Kinser Racing]

Congratulations and I'm sorry!

 

[Momentum Racing]

Congrats on the wins, and welcome to the forum/images/boards/smilies/thumb.gif. This place is invaluable to anyone who wants to take their Scout to the winners circle.

I probably would have handled little Hitler differently than you did and demanded he show you the rule violation. If it ended up with my Scout not being able to race it would be a valuable life lesson that you have to stand up for what's right, regardless of the consequences.

I wouldn't mind hearing the rest of your story, I love hearing others experiences with the good and bad of Scout racing.

 

[BulldogRacing]

Wheel gap police? LOL!

 

[Vitamin K]

I've never heard of a wheel gap being enforced. I know the standard tool has a gap notch that can be used if desired, but somebody probably interpreted that to mean "this is the legal gap." Maybe they had a problem with people pushing their wheels in too far and not spinning? Bizarre.

Congrats on your kids getting the win, in spite of ignorant race organizers.

 

[Nerds]

We weren't the only ones to have problems. It seemed like they were more interested in enforcing rules that didn't exist rather than puttting on a good event.

Like I said, disaster from the start. Registration hadn't opened when we got there so we went to sit in the shade (outdoor venue). The wooden track is on the slab at the edge of the grass. Sprinklers come on and we scramble to move the track over but it still gets wet. They finally open registration, one table, with the PWD Nazi so everyone is standing in the sun for over an hour just to get the cars checked in.
Apparently the sunlight was too bright for the optical sensors so they actually had to move the finish line of the track into the bathroom to get it out of the natural light.

Racing finally starts and they still have issues with the timers, cars coming off the track etc. The stop section is backed by a plywood box so its demolition derby at the end of each race as cars slam into the wall and each other. And if all of that wasn't enough, the car runners were stacking four cars on top of each other and carrying them in one hand. Unfortunately in this council, the derby seems to be more of an obligtion than the event that it deserves to be.

 

[Momentum Racing]

Well your first post was accurate...it was a complete cluster./images/boards/smilies/eek.gif One would think they would have things more on the ball, it never ceases to amaze.

Our Council was very similar...we get there at 8:30... didn't leave until 5:30 or so, all for our car to make 3 runs. We go to sign in and the I see they weren't going to let the gentleman in front of us run because he had an extended wheelbase, I thought Uh-Oh, we have an extended wheelbase as well ! I get out of line and go over and talk to my wife, I thought there is no way I could have missed that in the rules, but they did have a copy at the sign in table that stated no extended wheelbases. I had my wife pull it up online on their official site and of course in the online rules there was no mention of the wheelbase. I got back in line armed with their own websites rules ready for a possible confrontation, by the time I got back up to the table they were letting extended wheelbase cars run.

They also had a 4 wheel touch rule, I never once saw them check a car for 3 wheels. My own visual inspection of the cars in the pits revealed about half the cars there were on 3 wheels, my guess is most were not intentional, but several others clearly were.

Hours of computer crashes and software problems, as at your race scouts were grabbing 3-4 cars in a hand and hoping for the best. I saw one scout free fall a car onto the hard tile floor resulting in weights flying out in directions I've never even heard of /images/boards/smilies/eek.gif.

I give my Council the benefit of the doubt because they haven't had a Council race in many years and they admitted they were not prepared.They promised it would be different from here out, which is all anyone could really ask for.

 

[davet]

We had the wheel gap police last year at Districts. We're in the NorthernStar Council and our rules make no mention of gap. We had ours at .010" and the gal checking cars started trying to force the store bought plastic gauge into our gap. I could see her put our car close to her chest so she could get more power. It didn't go in and when she went to the other wheel I finally had to tell her that she would wreck the car and that the rules don't have a gap setting. She handed it back to my boy and told him he could fix it if she broke it. She also had a son racing. We still ended up taking first with track record and she looked irritated sitting next to us.

Unfortunately, it does cross my mind that maybe some of this is an intentional act to try to slow down faster looking cars.

This year at Districts a scout helper had cookies setting on the 1' test section used to check fit and under body clearance. The adult comes over and rolls our car back and forth, calls it good and went to put it on the rack. I had to intervene again and ask if we could wipe the cookie crumbs off the wheels which looked like they had been rolled in honey then in oatmeal. He seemed irritated. Some think the parent should let these things go. Unfortunately, an 11 yo or younger doesn't have the maturity to question an adult in that situation. Doesn't matter if you've built a fast car or if you didn't even know to add lube, the staff running the show shouldn't be causing the car to slow down.

A week after the race I mention the cookies and some other observations and offer to help next year as it looked very busy. I get an e-mail back from Activities Coordinator saying 4 parents complained about our LED lights on race day and he said they should've DQ'd our car. 4 different parents complaining about one car is a big deal. I forwarded him an e-mail reply I got back from BestTrack prior to starting our build where they said LED's are a non-issue. He replied back, "Did you just pull that out of your a*%?" Further questioning of 2 other higher ups in District that were there all day and both said nobody complained.

I'm glad we're done now.

 

[Kinser Racing]

Scout mentality! Leave it at home and in the words of Nachos friend Stephen, "We need to go Pro!"

 

[TRE]

Put on the big boy pants LOL!

 

[Vitamin K]

I am always sorry to hear of poorly-run Scout races, but I hope our reaction is not to eschew or deride Scout racing. Races like the Mid-America and the NSC Council races show that it can be done right. Our goal as "pros" (I chuckle at that, because most of us take a net loss from racing, rather than profit), should be to educate and evangelize. Surely we want more people racing in the leagues, but I would posit that the more people that experience positive experiences at the scout level, the more people we'll have eager to continue racing at a different level.

 

[B_Regal Racing]

I must admit, I do not have the same respect for scout cars at our local race, nor do any of the scout cars I have helped my son build are to the quality of my league cars. The are much rougher and far more durable. I do not want to suggest I intentionally mishandle scout cars, but I am very particular with the handling of league cars, whether they are my own or another's.

That being said, I would not force anything in any car.

 

[Ayers Racing]

WOW! I never heard of checking for wheel gaps as you have described. I think we've all had our fair share of poorly ran races, I think a lot of is due to the people running the race not have a good knowledge of the hobby. However, that shouldn't be an excuse to run a race the they way they do.

As far as people complaining about your car, I've had that happen to me a few times. I think one of the funniest things that happened to me was at a Royal Ambassadors race. Someone that I wasn't even racing against accused me of cheating after my car made its first run! I asked them if they knew how I was cheating and they said "Well you just are...". Long story short, after the race I offered to pull the wheels and axles off of my car and they could take a look at everything. They looked at it and still wasn't satisfied. I guess when they find out you league race or know you have had a fast car in the past, you automatically become a target.

 

[Mister B Racing]

Back in March, E3 PWD invited me to race in a family and friends race at his son's scout PWD race. E3 pretty much ran the whole race and did a super job. Having someone with some knowledge of PWD racing running the race, a scout race can be run very well and fair for everyone.

How did I do in the race? Well... we raced Eliminator's and I finished second to E3!

 

[gdurban]

I just wanted to thank all of you for this site and all of your generous information. My boys are both Webelos and just finished the season with a 1st and 2nd at the Council Championship. For the year, they went 1 & 2 at den, pack overall, district, Council Webelos, and Council Overall. I've been reading much of this site looking for a little more speed and sincerely thank you all for sharing your experience. Unfortunately, this last race was a complete cluster from the minute we got there. I think every kid and parent was aggravated in some way. But it seems to be a theme this year from what I've been reading. They made us increase our wheel gap so the plastic measuring tool would fit in the gap. I was hot, and asked him to show me in the rules where you have to have a certain wheel gap. The guy running the race wouldn't open the rules even though they were sitting right on the table. But not wanting to deny the boys an opportunity to race, I increased the gap and let it go, knowing the cars would be loose. Luckily we were still able to pull off the win. I won't bore you with the rest of the story, but needless to say, it was not a good event. Thanks again, you guys are great!

Are you in South Florida Gulf Stream Council? This sounds exactly like our race.

Congratulations on your wins!!

 

[gdurban]

We weren't the only ones to have problems. It seemed like they were more interested in enforcing rules that didn't exist rather than puttting on a good event. Like I said, disaster from the start. Registration hadn't opened when we got there so we went to sit in the shade (outdoor venue). The wooden track is on the slab at the edge of the grass. Sprinklers come on and we scramble to move the track over but it still gets wet. They finally open registration, one table, with the PWD Nazi so everyone is standing in the sun for over an hour just to get the cars checked in. Apparently the sunlight was too bright for the optical sensors so they actually had to move the finish line of the track into the bathroom to get it out of the natural light. Racing finally starts and they still have issues with the timers, cars coming off the track etc. The stop section is backed by a plywood box so its demolition derby at the end of each race as cars slam into the wall and each other. And if all of that wasn't enough, the car runners were stacking four cars on top of each other and carrying them in one hand. Unfortunately in this council, the derby seems to be more of an obligtion than the event that it deserves to be.

Now I know you are in our Council. I could not believe the incompetence of the organizers. You summed it up well. I could add a bunch more negative notes but I promised myself to let it go.

Anyway, we did not stay for the finals. My son got 2nd in the Wolves and we had an event later that day. But, I ran one of the tracks at Everglades District and I'm pretty sure you guys got 1, 2 there and I knew I we could not beet you. We'll get you next year....

.

Of course, I know now why you were 1, 2. You knew about this site before the race. I discovered it after the race when trying to think how to get faster for next year. So much great information and generous bunch of guys!! Thanks for sharing your wealth of knowledge.