Help, big race coming in Canada

[OPARENNEN]

I posted a message in our Church's weekly hand out, that my shop was open for any cub scout. The Pack leader also announced it at the pack meetings. Yesterday, only one showed up. He did everything except using the band saw and belt sander. Rather than paint, I showed him how to iron on Monokote. He even adjusted the veer on the tuning board, and staged the car for test runs. He was sub-3 on ten runs. Tuesday is the race. I expect he will win by over a car length. I'm taking a copy of the church news letter to give to any one who complains. The car is true stock by all rules. Except for the wheel bore polishing, the wheels are "as is" from the BSA kit. I put them on the balancer, I was pleasantly surprised at how true they were (made in USA, except they bought that kit for an 18 wheeler). I wonder if those wheels are different than from the normal kit?

Oh yes, any lubricant was allowed. His mom came with him, and was overjoyed that the messy graphite was not needed.

 

[Ryanh]

I took the same aproach as many of you offering help or advice to everyone in the pack, one mother made an effort by buying some tungsten weights. She, her husband ant he scout showed up at my house the night before the race with a painted can "finished, just needing weight" and we drilled it for the wieghts. I sat in silence as he drilled through the top of the car, coated the top pf the car with super glue trying to get the wieghts to stay. After cutting some ear plugs to fill the holes and covering it with tape he was on his way. Although the race wasnt close the boy finished 2nd in our pack race.

 

[DNA RACING]

i have a sour attitude about having open shops, i hosted meetings several years running when i was the Cub Master. I even printed out handouts and had examples on hand. i would spend an hour explaining the BASICS. all the parents were taking notes and asking questions. after the race one dad comes up to me and asks why his car was so slow. i asked him how much it weighed? he says 1.9 oz. "do ya think i should have added weight"? then i ask what kind of lube he used? he said none. I gave up, i handed him the keys to victory and he threw them away and slapped me in the face with the dumb questions afterward.

 

[heidi]

Thanks guys, I really needed to read all this as I lost a friend this morning and these comments made me smile. It's funny, I have never met any of you and yet you are all so incredibly supportive of my family! Simply amazing...complete strangers...thank you.

 

[cozybldr]

Nobody in my Pack did the accusing of my son or me? Why? I went out of my way to teach the kids how to do it, ran the workshops, and the Happy Hour testing. This year we came home, as a Pack, with 3 out of the 4 #1 speed trophies from District. I have other Packs asking me to teach them. I told the leaders that I would do a session at University of Scouting on how to setup a fast car. One of the fathers from another Pack placed 2nd behind my son at District after I helped him reprep his car. It was another one of those "no graphite" cars. Several of the parents came to me to learn how graphite the car. More than one told me that they had never seen some the practices I was doing.

Most of them were overweight. My son's was 4.995 oz.
Wheel gaps too large was another common theme.
Lack of rail running was common. Most did not know why to do it.
Front weighting of the car or middle weighting was common.
Wheels not prepped. I won't go into balancing or bore polishing. I am talking about trued treads.

All of this was at the District level. When I was done in the Pits/Repair Area, several of the cars ran faster than they had at the Pack. Parents are asking how to make them faster. So I used the opportunity to encourage them to become adult Leaders and attend UoS for the class. I am doing it as a Train the Trainer idea.

 

[zeezop]

Hi Heidi,

Print out the early part of this thread, with green paper would be appropriate, which captures your trials and send it off to all the complainers...send a link to the thread to those who emailed you. Remind them of the Cub Scout Motto, did they really DYB?

 

[OPARENNEN]

Hi Heidi,

Print out the early part of this thread, with green paper would be appropriate, which captures your trials and send it off to all the complainers...send a link to the thread to those who emailed you. Remind them of the Cub Scout Motto, did they really DYB?

Add a link to this forum, and tell them if they want to know how to build a fast car, here are the instructions. But tell them to be prepared, that even if you know all the secrets, it takes a week or more to build a winning car. Most of them would never put in the time.

 

[quadad]

Except for the wheel bore polishing, the wheels are "as is" from the BSA kit. I put them on the balancer, I was pleasantly surprised at how true they were (made in USA, except they bought that kit for an 18 wheeler). I wonder if those wheels are different than from the normal kit?

The 18-wheelers still for sale have wheels from the early production runs of the 2009 design wheels and have a MUCH, MUCH higher average quality (spin characteristics, i.e. dynamic balance). Get them while you can !

 

[oskiwow]

When we started building, we took pictures of everything we did -- mostly because my wife likes photography, but also we knew that if we had won, we wanted to show that our son did indeed actively participate in the building.

Facebook/social media helped us out in this also. Our pack parents are friends of ours on Facebook, and literally watched us during our build process that started in January for an end-of-March pack race. We didn't show everything we did, but we didn't hide anything either -- polished axles, polished bores, testing, etc.

When we won, we didn't get any sniping or grumbling or anything like that -- most parents started their building of their kids' cars a week or two before the race.

When asked, "Why did you guys start so early?", my son said, "Because I wanted to win."

He's learned that preparation pays off. Once he figures out how to plan, then I'll feel a bit more at ease -- but he's not even a teen yet...