Videos of the 2013 Mid America Pinewood Derby

[xanthrum]

There are some great videos of the 2013 Mid America Pinewood Derby posted on the Video Page on the website.

http://www.midamericaderby.com/video

2014 - is going to be an amazing event... get ready for soon to be released details on dates.

 

[davet]

Hello Gregg,
W&K Creations turned us on to the idea of sending our car to the MidAmerica race. My boy (Bear Cub Scout) and I built only our 3rd ever derby car over the last couple of months. This was our first year making a railrunner with the help of many on the forum under the thread "1 week to scout race". Pics of his car are there also.

We qualified for districts with a 2.98 time here locally. We were fortunate to get lots of excellent advice here. We don't have a test track so we really had to bank on what others on here told us.

Anyways, my boy is pretty up on the idea of sending this car to the Mid-America race after our Districts. I have many questions for you. You don't have to answer all here but if you have a source for the info that you could refer me to that would be great.

1) If we weight our car here at home to 5.04 oz and it reads a little heavier on your scale is it disqualified or does someone there pull some putty off? With the caliber of racers I see running that race they must be weighting right to the edge of 5.04.

2) I see shipping boxes on DD4H site that use foam. Doesn't foam "dust" get into the wheels during shipping? Do guys ship the cars in plastic bags inside the box?

3) What are you guessing is the general shipping cost?

4) Can my boy watch his car race in real time on the computer?

5) What class would we run in? He has a 5oz car, stock BSA kit wheels and stock BSA kit axles that are grooved and polished, Krytox, rail-runner.

6) What does tech inspection consist of?

Thank you very much. This seems very exciting for us.

 

[xanthrum]

Davet,

Great questions... in regards to each of them.... I will do my best at answering.

1) We can absolutely adjust weigh especially if it is putty so much easier than trying to get weight out of a body or trying to remove lead or even worse tungsten... however you would be very surprised to learn that weight even though it does matter pushing it to the exact limit does not really gain you any real speed, if you get your cars to 143grams you will be in excellent shape. We do have expert help to ensure you make weight

2) John's shipping boxes are absolutely the way to go... it is what most of the league racers use, and they will protect your car, and if you follow the instructions you can find on here and it is with out doubt the safest and best practice in shipping cars. I suppose you could put it in a plastic bag, although I would not recommend it... as it could create an issue rather than any risk of contamination.

3) The shipping and return shipping depends on several factors, where you are - the total weight of what you invariably send and the type of shipping (overnight, priority, ups, usps) - Shipping is not going to be too much probably a round trip somewhere near $20 - and I can assure you that you get back well more than $20 of cool prizes and great pwd stuff.

4) Yes we broadcast the races live... and this year with a serious overhaul to the past systems that we were using... it will be very similar to watch a league race.

5) He would run in the Open Scout Division

6) You can find all the rules on the website. www.midamericaderby.com - we have a lot of great people helping tech in cars and we are checking to make sure wheels have marking intact inside and out, weight, car dimensions, and adhering to all the rules listed.

I hope that answer several of your questions, it is an epic event - and a great way to get started in proxy racing, you would be essentially racing the fastest cub scouts in the United States.

 

[davet]

Thank you Sir. I see an Open Scout graphite division and another for oil. We ran our car at the Pack race with Krytox. I'm guessing we would run the Oil Division unless something I'm missing wouldn't allow that.

Also, another racer on here told me that if we didn't run lightened wheels we would have no chance. The rules say stock BSA wheels with listed modifications allowed. Would those modifications allow aftermarket lightened wheels or was this other racer assuming we would run a different division?

I know these are fast cars that race your venue. Is there a qualification for competing? My daughter would like to build a car also for it also but she has never built one and has no previous races to get a qualifying time. Is she eligible also? Thank you very much.

 

[xanthrum]

Great questions... in regards to wheels for all the divisions except the pro divisions the rules on the wheels are the same - essentially all BSA Markings have to be intact inside and out - which would allow you to run an "Aftermarket" wheel if you would like... not necessary to compete - probably to win... but several racers that did rather well last year ran slightly modified stock type wheels... Wheels along with many things can contribute to making a car fast...

I would encourage you to look at the website... www.midamericaderby.com - we have a division that your daughter can race in -- actually several depending on how advanced she would like to get... we have an open kids division - it is a Graphite only race... if she wants to run oil then she is best to enter into the Pro Stock division. Your son would likely race in the Open Scout Oil Division.

I hope that answers some of your questions.

Truly
Greg

 

[davet]

Yes it does. Thank you. Now, help me convince my wife to turn it into a road trip.