Race Results

[Chris Stevenson]

Our pack race was held today and something kinda crappy happened. Long story short, my son had the fastest car of the day, but in his very last race in the finals a car in the lane next to his jumped the track and impacted his car and slowed it down enough to drop him from first to second. There was some short discussion of running the heat again, but the race director decided against it. I don't think he knew that it meant the difference between first and second. I didn't say anything, though I felt I could have asked them to run the heat again. I just didn't want to be "that guy."

I'm curious, what's the protocol when cars jump the track and impede other cars?

Also, I was hoping to run in the district race. Is it only for pack winners, or can anyone who chooses to run it?

 

[Mojo Racing]

Normally, when a car jumps the track the race is re-run... Especially if it hits another car.

 

[Loud2ns]

I think you can bring up something like that to the track operator or the race director without being "that guy". Just keep your cool.

 

[Prozach2]

I would’ve done the same thing. Normally, they re-run it, but if they didn’t, I wouldn’t say anything. Nothing wrong with politely requesting they run it again, but I wouldn’t want to be “that guy” either.
As for Districts, definitely check, but I’m pretty sure you’re in. Good luck!

 

[Chris Stevenson]

All of the guys running the race volunteer to do it and it's a lot of selfless work for them. I didn't want to introduce any controversy, though a lot of people realized what had happened, including the kid who won first's parents. I just felt like I didn't want the competitive aspect of the race to overshadow other, more important things. I probably could have calmly and nicely informed the race director what happened and politely asked them to rerun the heat and it would have been fine. Maybe I should have. I honestly don't think he knew that the car that came off the track affected any other car. I also don't think he knew that it changed first and second place overall. If he had known either of those things I think he would have rerun the heat on his own volition.

Anyway, looks like all you have to do to participate in the district race is to register. You don't have to qualify. My son wants to do it. The rules are different, though, so we're going to have to do some work to get ready.

 

[Mojo Racing]

I hate it when pack rules differ from district rules.

One of the packs in the area won't race in the district race. Their rules have 4 touching, no canting/bending axles, and they say they are at an unfair disadvantage because district allows 3 wheel rail runners.

Yes... they are at a disadvantage... but they can easily fix it by adopting the district rules that come out before the end of the year (sometimes).

Drives me nuts... most of the time, it takes a total rebuild.

 

[Chris Stevenson]

I hate it when pack rules differ from district rules.

One of the packs in the area won't race in the district race. Their rules have 4 touching, no canting/bending axles, and they say they are at an unfair disadvantage because district allows 3 wheel rail runners.

Yes... they are at a disadvantage... but they can easily fix it by adopting the district rules that come out before the end of the year (sometimes).

Drives me nuts... most of the time, it takes a total rebuild.

Yeah, I don't get the lack of organization here. What's crazy is that the district rules are a lot more strict, so the cars at the pack level are almost certainly faster than district because district doesn't allow any aftermarket materials and pack does. You would have to have one car to compete at the pack race and a totally different car to compete at the district race.

 

[Loud2ns]

All of the guys running the race volunteer to do it and it's a lot of selfless work for them. I didn't want to introduce any controversy, though a lot of people realized what had happened, including the kid who won first's parents. I just felt like I didn't want the competitive aspect of the race to overshadow other, more important things. I probably could have calmly and nicely informed the race director what happened and politely asked them to rerun the heat and it would have been fine. Maybe I should have. I honestly don't think he knew that the car that came off the track affected any other car. I also don't think he knew that it changed first and second place overall. If he had known either of those things I think he would have rerun the heat on his own volition.

Anyway, looks like all you have to do to participate in the district race is to register. You don't have to qualify. My son wants to do it. The rules are different, though, so we're going to have to do some work to get ready.

I wouldn't second guess yourself on the call you made. A valuable lesson can be learned. Sometimes you do everything right and set yourself up for success.......and it still doesn't work out . That happens in life too!

 

[Prozach2]

I wouldn't second guess yourself on the call you made. A valuable lesson can be learned. Sometimes you do everything right and set yourself up for success.......and it still doesn't work out . That happens in life too!

Yeah, if something like this happened to one of my kids and they handled it with a good attitude, that would mean so much more to me than a 1st place win.

 

[Brian Stanley]

Yeah, I don't get the lack of organization here. What's crazy is that the district rules are a lot more strict, so the cars at the pack level are almost certainly faster than district because district doesn't allow any aftermarket materials and pack does. You would have to have one car to compete at the pack race and a totally different car to compete at the district race.

I'm a fan of Packs using the same rules as their district/council races. This is what our Pack does. It sure makes things a lot easier.

 

[Chris Stevenson]

Race director sent out the results last night, including the race times and speed for every car in every race except that the data for the last race for most cars was missing. I don't know why. I think it probably has something to do with the software. The way our pack runs their race each car runs four times; once in each lane. The cumulative times for those four races determines the top 3 den winners. The top three from each den then move on to the second round where each car again races four times; once in each lane. The cumulative times from the second round determine the overall champion and trophies are awarded to the top 3. The times from the first round are not factored in to the overall champion standings. I don't know if this is how it's done everywhere. It makes sense to me and I have no problem with it, though I do recognize that using this format could have an effect on the outcome. Some cars run their best races in rounds 1-3. In fact, the fastest single heat time was run by a car (not one of the eventual top-2) in its very first race. Others get "primed" and run better races in rounds 5-8. The way we do it rewards cars who run better later. I don't see a problem with that.

I don't know how the missing data from the last race in round 2 affected things, if at all. It may have worked to my son's advantage because his car got hit by another car that came off the track and it slowed him down and he recorded his worst heat time of the day, by far. He averaged 195.64 mph (2.5989) and never ran worse than 195.14 (2.6056) in all of the other races and I know the mph on his last run was 193.38. (I know the time is what people look at, not mph, but that was the number that I looked at and remembered before it was cleared.) The run time would have been around 2.628 - about .029 higher than his average. The final standings showed the difference between first and second as .003. That was without the final race data factored in. That gap would have been higher with the 8th race data because my son's heat time was much slower because of the impact. Anyway, I don't know if the 8th race times were factored into the final standings or not. It doesn't matter and I don't even care. I do wish we had the data for the 8th race for all of the cars and that they had run my son's heat over - just to see. Mostly I just think it's interesting.

Looking at my son's data (without the data from his last race), we gained .0218 seconds on our average run time and 1.62 mph over last year's car. I hoped and expected the jump would be bigger. All that time and effort for .0218 seconds difference! We used trash parts and seriously flawed techniques last year compared to this year. I don't know what to think about all that. I need at least a tenth of a second got-doggit! Next year!

 

[Deckard]

Looking at my son's data (without the data from his last race), we gained .0218 seconds on our average run time and 1.62 mph over last year's car. I hoped and expected the jump would be bigger. All that time and effort for .0218 seconds difference! We used trash parts and seriously flawed techniques last year compared to this year. I don't know what to think about all that. I need at least a tenth of a second got-doggit! Next year!

Here's my suggestion. Join the people helping to run the derby. Maybe have them amend the rules to include the interference situation. Or at least agree ahead of race day that if it happens to re-run the heat.

Also if the track hasn't been cared for or setup properly(they might not even know) you can help the setup/prep it to minimize the chance of cars leaving the track.

So many variables go into a cars speed. But compared to other cars how did your car do last year? Maybe it really wasn't all that bad. Also I've experienced people slowing down their car by doing "too" many new things and maybe doing one thing wrong negating some of the other proper speed gains.

 

[Chris Stevenson]

Here's my suggestion. Join the people helping to run the derby. Maybe have them amend the rules to include the interference situation. Or at least agree ahead of race day that if it happens to re-run the heat.

Also if the track hasn't been cared for or setup properly(they might not even know) you can help the setup/prep it to minimize the chance of cars leaving the track.

So many variables go into a cars speed. But compared to other cars how did your car do last year? Maybe it really wasn't all that bad. Also I've experienced people slowing down their car by doing "too" many new things and maybe doing one thing wrong negating some of the other proper speed gains.

Yeah, my philosophy is that you can't criticize or complain if you don't take part in the effort. I'm not complaining about anything that was done at all. That said, I do have an interest in helping the race to run better (not that it wasn't run well before, because it was). The race director this year, who has done it for a number of years in a row, is passing the baton to someone new who happens to be the dad of one of the boys in my son's class. They are friends and I know this dad. I would feel comfortable making suggestions to him for next year's race, including having a rule in place to rerun heats where a car jumps the track and also possibly to modify our rules to be consistent with the district rules. I would consider volunteering to help set up the track. I know one lane has a pretty bad rough spot - it's been the slow lane 2 years in a row. Not sure if there is anything that could be done about it.

My son got third place overall last year. So he had a good car relative to the field. He had a better car this year, but the gains were pretty small by my standards.

 

[Prozach2]

[QUOTE=" All that time and effort for .0218 seconds difference! We used trash parts and seriously flawed techniques last year compared to this year. I don't know what to think about all that. I need at least a tenth of a second got-doggit! Next year![/QUOTE]

I'm right there with you. My sons and I spent 10x the time and money on this year's cars compared to last year's car. I thought this year's cars would've blow that one away, but on the same track, this year's cars were actually slower. Here's the two lessons that I learned: #1 What you do wrong might matter more than what you do right, and #2 if I want to improve, I need to build more cars. Hard to improve at anything if you only do it a couple times a year.

 

[Thinkin'Bout Racin]

Yeah, my philosophy is that you can't criticize or complain if you don't take part in the effort. I'm not complaining about anything that was done at all. That said, I do have an interest in helping the race to run better (not that it wasn't run well before, because it was). The race director this year, who has done it for a number of years in a row, is passing the baton to someone new who happens to be the dad of one of the boys in my son's class. They are friends and I know this dad. I would feel comfortable making suggestions to him for next year's race, including having a rule in place to rerun heats where a car jumps the track and also possibly to modify our rules to be consistent with the district rules. I would consider volunteering to help set up the track. I know one lane has a pretty bad rough spot - it's been the slow lane 2 years in a row. Not sure if there is anything that could be done about it.

My son got third place overall last year. So he had a good car relative to the field. He had a better car this year, but the gains were pretty small by my standards.

I really like your attitude toward both teaching your son and toward what happened at the races! I would ask you to consider this, as your speed gets faster, gains are harder to come by. I think you said you gained a bit over 2 hundredths. That is about 2/3 of a car length if everything else is equal. One variable that you may not be considering is that these
times/runs were a year apart on a track that was taken down and set back up. A small change in the hill angle can easily make 1-2 hundredths difference.

Good Luck!

 

[Bubblegum]

If you're good then end of the story.

On the flip side, teaching your kids how to properly complain is a valuable life lesson too.

Ever see Saving Private Ryan? Remember the scene when they are walking in the field and Barry Pepper's character is complaining about the waste of valuable military resources to end the war?

I have shown my kids that and taught them there is a correct way to correct life's issues.

No one would have fault you for asking for another heat. If so those are not very good sports to begin with.

 

[Jupiter 2.9]

Send your Scout car into a league race, un touched & use that time as your base line.
change things, tune it, clean it whatever. At least your gains will be measurable.
I use them as my test track & the videos keep the kids interested.
I also enjoy coming in 10th place, it use to be 15th. lol