Reducing cant for district race?

[RSR]

My son won his pack race Saturday by a strong margin. We implemented a lot of good advice posted on this forum and smoked the field. The 2nd place car's fastest heat was .03 slower than my son's slowest run. His den is competitive but the rest of the pack hasn't hung with them since their first year. Next year is second year Webelos and then they will be done. I think the rest of the pack is ready to see us go.

All of that being said the rules have been tightened this year for the district race. They added "axles must be installed parallel to the bottom of the car as to run parallel with the track". We drilled this car with with canted rears and to the best of my knowledge should be around 2.8* of cant. I think that we can hold on to a tiny bit of cant and the wheels will still sit flat, just to make sure the wheels push out to the axle heads. My thoughts are to bend a different pair of rear axles to 1.5* and insert those in tilted down toward the track. That should get the rears at about 1* of cant and still sit essentially parallel to the track. I don't think anyone will be able to see that (maybe even me).

Suggestions?

 

[B_Regal Racing]

I would not bend my axles. If I had a choice between bending or axles straight and parallel to the track, I'm taking straight and parallel. I would try to offset the car's potential to be more unstable than with a 3 degree cant with steer and/or tight wheel gaps.

Others may not agree, but the only time I would consider bending a rear axles if it was a last resort (e.g. no other choice) between racing and not racing. So there could potentially be a case, but honestly, I have not come across it yet. (And, I have ran bent axles in the rear in the past, so I do have a point of comparison between the two methodologies.)

 

[NeedforSpeed]

This "axles must be installed parallel to the bottom of the car as to run parallel with the track" is a stupid rule and I've seen it more than one place. If they don't want the axles canted then they need to just say "don't cant the axles"! Truth is they probably don't know what it is and won't take the time to research it so they throw that rule in there because they saw little "Timmy's" car that beat their sons car had angled rear wheels. Plus its an unenforceable rule. What if little Johnny used slots and accidentally pushed them in at an angle? What if the bottom if the car is not straight? Furthermore the the contact surface of the canted wheel is running parallel with the track!....end rant

Anyway on this site you are going to hear " don't bend the rear axles" and I agree. I would fill the holes with epoxy and re drill at a 1 degree cant. They won't see that or at least it won't be that noticeable. I'm slow though so don't take my word for it. These other guys may have a better idea

 

[SPEEDQUEST]

I ran into the same scenario last year with Districts. I attempted your idea. I bent rear axles about 1.5 deg and tried to use canted holes drilled at 2.5 deg. I could not get rear alignment where I wanted it. I had access to a track and tested. I could not get rid of rear wiggle. No matter how much I adjusted steer, rear would wiggle side-to-side on the flat section.
In a last attempt to keep from building a complete car, I glued in toothpicks in the original holes. I cut tip off toothpick and sanded round toothpick for a easy fit into hole. Then coated toothpick with Titebond wood glue and inserted into holes. I let dry for about 18 hrs. (Instructions say cure time is 12 hrs) I then sanded back smooth with side of car body. I re-drilled holes at about a 1 deg cant. I started the new hole with the center of the bit at the top of the original hole. I used the HSS jobber length #44 bit from DD4H on my Proxxon drill press with Silver Bullet.
I tested rears after new holes using LB method and I got lucky. Rears stayed out rolling forward and backward.
Had 1st Place locked up halfway through finals at District. On race 5 of 8, we finished about 3 car lengths ahead of car in lane next to us. Our car went under foam stop, hit wood and bounced backward, collecting the car beside of us going in opposite directions. Busted left rear of car from weight pocket through axle. We was able to glue everything back together. We still managed 2nd place.
Just a suggestion. I know filling holes with toothpick and re-drilling is not the best method, but it worked better for me than bent axles.

 

[RSR]

The issue is that the car has already been built with straight axles drilled canted. The car won the pack race, but more importantly it won the den race that qualified it to race the district championships. To meet the rules we have to get the rear axles at least relatively level with the track. I would really prefer not to mess with the car as it is flying and only has about 15 runs on this oil prep. My preference would be to keep it in a Ziploc for the next month and then my son can put it on track as is. My preference would be to keep it in a Ziploc for the next month and then my son can put it on track as is. The boys place the cars in the lane at our district race so they don’t even get handled that much by adults. I suggested to my son that we drill canted so that we wouldn’t have alignment problems in the first place. He knew about canted rears from watching Mark Robers The Science of Pinewood Derby video that Boys Life posted on YouTube. When I explained the alignment problems bent axles introduce to him he was quick to understand why drilling canted shouldn’t introduce that problem.

We built another car that is almost an exact clone of the car that was raced in the pack. That car has flat rear axle drillings. I got to run them both the night before the race and the car with canted rears was a car length faster. I tweaked the axles the next morning but I did not get to run it against my son’s car with bent axles as it was already checked in for the race. I did get to run it against a 14 year old Boy Scout’s car that won the pack 3 years earlier. We freshened up his graphite the night before and his car had our flat rears car by half a car length almost every time. I took him down the next morning and that was fun because I love messing with him on scout outings.

I think the rule about the parallel axle holes are just a cut and paste job by whoever put the rules together. There are other small errors in the rules that make me think that although they are focused on making sure everyone uses BSA parts the vague wording of the axle thing won’t be enforced. If I get the impression that they are holding fast to that rule at check-in we will run the 2[sup]nd[/sup] car.

Boys Life posts a great video to help bring people up to speed on what should be the new basics of pinewood derby. The Scoutstuff website and the council scout shop sells the officially licensed tools for the masses to bend axles, shave wheels, ruin hubs and Krytox. And they obviously sell them because the wheelshaver is on backorder online. It is time for the rules to catch up.