we might as well have one SS class

I am going to buy race prepped wheels and axles from DD4H, so i know what they are supposed to look like and perform.

I understand why both sides are upset, one side feels cheated and the other says get over it.

At the end of the day DD4H introduced the novice class to encourage more racers and grow the league.
 
OK fellas...here is your answer:
Keep the 3 classes, but when each SS car is unboxed, give the car one qualifying run. Its qualifying time will determine which class it runs in. If a builder enters multiple cars, they all get placed in the class of the builder's fastest car. Now, obviously guys like QT and JBD and CamCar, etc will get put right into the highest level without having to qualify.
It will be more for John and crew to do, but it will put everyone in an equal class.
 
I think I'm coming off the wrong way for everyone. I dont feel cheated. I'm not upset about people buying cars as I know it's difficult to manage purchased cars vs built cars. Race whatever division you feel comfortable with. I only worry about my cars and my times because when it comes down to it, that is all I can control. What I worry about is trying to get people into league racing. I've talked to many newer guys to the forums encouraging them to race in the league. I'm also working with some dads from our Pack's pinewood derby to get them into league racing. It becomes very difficult when I explain that you dont have to worry about racing Pro racers because they have and Amateur and Novice division for us that aren't as good of a builder yet so we'll be racing against similar skilled builders. It becomes increasingly difficult for me to then come back to them and continue to encourage them to race when there is a lot of talk about Pro builder cars not racing in the Pro division. I mean, if I was just starting and knew very little on how to make a car fast (still dont) seeing a car post a low 2.98 and even hitting a 2.97 time would be very discouraging to me, especially since most top pro's are putting those times up. Lets face it, we all want to win and be the best.

I think most people on here buy most of their products from John. Why? It's the best out there and most of us dont have the tools or skills to make out own (wife just doesnt understand why I need a lathe for pinewood derby). So when it comes to putting purchased parts together to make your car, that's still your car that you built. When you want to build a car in real life you still purchase all the parts and piece to put it together, you still built that car. When you go to a car dealership and buy a car, you dont say I built that car. That's great if Flying W re-prep'd with JBD's guidance. I'm not that good so apparently I need to work on that more.
 
zeebzob said:
OK fellas...here is your answer:
Keep the 3 classes, but when each SS car is unboxed, give the car one qualifying run. Its qualifying time will determine which class it runs in. If a builder enters multiple cars, they all get placed in the class of the builder's fastest car. Now, obviously guys like QT and JBD and CamCar, etc will get put right into the highest level without having to qualify.
It will be more for John and crew to do, but it will put everyone in an equal class.

That's putting a lot more on John and the guys that help than needs to be. We're all adults here. Why can't we just say hey I purchased this car from a pro, I'll race in the pro class.
 
zeebzob said:
OK fellas...here is your answer:
Keep the 3 classes, but when each SS car is unboxed, give the car one qualifying run. Its qualifying time will determine which class it runs in. If a builder enters multiple cars, they all get placed in the class of the builder's fastest car. Now, obviously guys like QT and JBD and CamCar, etc will get put right into the highest level without having to qualify.
It will be more for John and crew to do, but it will put everyone in an equal class.

I also have thought that this would be a good way to sort the cars out in the SS class. For me the racing is much more intense and a lot more fun to watch my car race against the other cars that are close to the same speed as mine.
 
Obsessedderbydad said:
What I worry about is trying to get people into league racing. I've talked to many newer guys to the forums encouraging them to race in the league. I'm also working with some dads from our Pack's pinewood derby to get them into league racing. It becomes very difficult when I explain that you dont have to worry about racing Pro racers because they have and Amateur and Novice division for us that aren't as good of a builder yet so we'll be racing against similar skilled builders. It becomes increasingly difficult for me to then come back to them and continue to encourage them to race when there is a lot of talk about Pro builder cars not racing in the Pro division. I mean, if I was just starting and knew very little on how to make a car fast (still dont) seeing a car post a low 2.98 and even hitting a 2.97 time would be very discouraging to me, especially since most top pro's are putting those times up. Lets face it, we all want to win and be the best.

Its great that you are trying to get some new guys involved in the hobby. But I think that if a guy is competitive enough and driven enough they will find the NPWDRL easily enough on their own. The best builders race here and the toughest builders stick around to get better. Just keep building and learning. The guys who are exceptionally fast will rise to the top and the rest of us will fall in the middle.

There are a lot of reasons for buying a pro built car. Maybe a guy doesn't have the shop space or the tools or the time to build his own car. I can easily agree that getting smoked like that and learning that the car was initially built by a pro can be discouraging. Even if the racer did his own prep, It stings a little for sure. He will move on after this series and you guys can keep racing novice until its your turn to win a championship and then move up and start the climb to the top over again.

I am staying in the AM class until I win the class. This has proven difficult with all the fast new builders. I will just hang in there and keep building new cars hoping I will get better enough at building to turn out a fast enough car.
 
I'm not discouraged. I have fun building. But I could see someone new come on the site, want to league race and figure ok I'll start out at novice since I'm new at this. Let's look at the times for Novice. Ok most are around 3.00 or 2.99, wait there's a guy that's 2.98XX and his times beat 77% of the Pro's? Something doesnt look right there.
 
The truth is there are very few people that have the competitive drive to make it to the top of the league races. So many people try it out and leave after one shot when they realize just how hard it is. That is cool! I don't expect everyone to be that into pinewood derby to try and make it to that level. The people racing here are in the top .003% of racers in the country. Many will come and many will go. THere is no way to please everyone. We will find a better solution moving forward and it will make it even better. Flying W could be the next Quicktime! Time will tell and Flying W will have to learn to endure the price that comes with winning too. Welcome to the club W!!! We have a group session weekly where we help each other through all the voodoo curses and hateful comments.
 
So there are possible changes coming down the pipeline?????

If you really want a competitive twist, why not have a form of bracket racing.

From wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracket_racing

"The effect of the bracket racing rules is to place a premium on consistency of performance of the driver and car rather than on raw speed, which in turn makes victory much less dependent on large infusions of money, and more dependent on mechanical and driving skill, such as reaction times, shifting abilities, and ability to control the car. "

Now that won't all apply to PWD, but it could be quite an interesting challenge.

You could have multiple brackets, you go over the bracket time you registered for - you lose.

Maybe the following;
3.010
2.990
2.970

or

2.995
2.985
2.975

Something along those lines, closest with lowest std deviation wins, go over you lose.

Hopefully that would provide this - The effect would be to place a premium on consistency of performance of the car, and the drivers ability to control the car, rather than on raw speed.

Just a thought.

Hey, what street stock class do I fall into?
 
All I can say is wanted to race pro. But was afraid my crappy setup would screw up someone's time down the track then the pros would be pissed every time I sent in a car. I like the challenge, you cant look at others times and who the winner is. You have to push yourself and it will come. Chase your own times and look to do better each time you send in a car. Before long you will be the one with the target on your back. I think it's OK for a pro to help with tips but not to setup someone's car. That would be like having to race two QT or DD4H.

We all want to be on top, but ask yourself what are we going to do after we are on top. Start our own Pinewood Derby Race. Enjoy the hobby spend time in the shop enjoy the build, have your kid in there with you have them help build one put there name on it. I do it's great to sit and watch the race with my son and see his face and to hear his comments about the cars and why ours did not win. All you can do is explain things to him and move on. (most of the time the answer is I screwed up son).
 
I'll admit that I was intimidated at the thought of competing against the pro racers. I had no delusions concerning my building skills. The lure of a novice class was enough to get me to wade into the pool. Now I'm hooked! Loved seeing my car on line and turn its' first sub three run in March. This really drove me to seek out people on this board who were willing to help me improve my technique. Their help led me to my first sub 2.99 run this month! I was thrilled and am very grateful for everyone's help. I Never thought I would see a car of mine go below 2.99 and know that advice from this board played a very key role. Yes, Flying W still beat me but the gap is closing. Talk about motivation. I'm sure I only have one shot left at him before he goes pro. It may be a while before I can earn that right.

I'm sure that if anyone in SS Novice or SS AM was approached by just about anyone in the Pro division, they wouldn't be all ears. Just try and tell me if QT said "This is what I do", you wouldn't carve those words in your work bench.
I don't hold anyone's connections against them even though I may be a bit envious.

I've often thank DD4H for supporting my addiction. Thanks again John for being a great enabler!
 
Ickabod Crane said:
I'll admit that I was intimidated at the thought of competing against the pro racers. I had no delusions concerning my building skills. The lure of a novice class was enough to get me to wade into the pool. Now I'm hooked! Loved seeing my car on line and turn its' first sub three run in March. This really drove me to seek out people on this board who were willing to help me improve my technique. Their help led me to my first sub 2.99 run this month! I was thrilled and am very grateful for everyone's help. I Never thought I would see a car of mine go below 2.99 and know that advice from this board played a very key role. Yes, Flying W still beat me but the gap is closing. Talk about motivation. I'm sure I only have one shot left at him before he goes pro. It may be a while before I can earn that right.

I'm sure that if anyone in SS Novice or SS AM was approached by just about anyone in the Pro division, they wouldn't be all ears. Just try and tell me if QT said "This is what I do", you wouldn't carve those words in your work bench.
I don't hold anyone's connections against them even though I may be a bit envious.

I've often thank DD4H for supporting my addiction. Thanks again John for being a great enabler!

I would delete the PM from QT if it said here are my secrets. I honestly dont want to know. Sure it'd be cheaper and more fun if I knew, but whats the fun in racing with other peoples secrets. I want to find something that works for me and I want to find it on my own. I dont want other people to tell me exactly what to do to win. Sure tips on what I'm doing wrong saves me time and Chris has been a huge help in saving me a lot of time and money. But no, I dont want to know QT's secrets.
 
Congrats. On the sub 3!! That is my goal too in the novice class. If it was not for the novice class I would have not waded into the pool either. I hope u get there!!
 
Knotthed said:
So there are possible changes coming down the pipeline?????

If you really want a competitive twist, why not have a form of bracket racing.

From wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracket_racing

"The effect of the bracket racing rules is to place a premium on consistency of performance of the driver and car rather than on raw speed, which in turn makes victory much less dependent on large infusions of money, and more dependent on mechanical and driving skill, such as reaction times, shifting abilities, and ability to control the car. "

Now that won't all apply to PWD, but it could be quite an interesting challenge.

You could have multiple brackets, you go over the bracket time you registered for - you lose.

Maybe the following;
3.010
2.990
2.970

or

2.995
2.985
2.975

Something along those lines, closest with lowest std deviation wins, go over you lose.

Hopefully that would provide this - The effect would be to place a premium on consistency of performance of the car, and the drivers ability to control the car, rather than on raw speed.

Just a thought.

Hey, what street stock class do I fall into?

Well, when I started about a year ago, I was in the AM class. Now at that time if you ran a 2.98 or better (with the old gate system) you automatically moved into the pro's the next month. So I spent a total of 1month in the AM class. Now there is no threshold, so it is confusing.
 
Rocket
Well, when I started about a year ago, I was in the AM class. Now at that time if you ran a 2.98 or better (with the old gate system) you automatically moved into the pro's the next month. So I spent a total of 1month in the AM class. Now there is no threshold, so it is confusing.

As was when I started. So now the AM class has a lot of "PROs" -old gate 2.98 and 2.97 racers, and that's ok.

I think having several classes makes it more fun for everyone, Whether its pro-am-nov or AA, A, B. I believe there was talk in last winters discussion of adding a nov class as per the intent of being "your own build". But I don't believe it ever made it to the rules.

As John posted recently, a lot of us , maybe myself included need to put the scout mentality aside and have fun. I don't believe there are many secrets left ODD, If you have a question, ask sometimes a PM is better. The guys at the top learned from the guys who came before them then built on from there.

Regardless of the structure, there still needs to be a gentlemens agreement to adhere to. No, I'm not calling anyone out.

So lets race and have some fun!