What elapsed time on a 35 foot track will lead to a sub 3 second car?

Sep 20, 2015
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Seattle
I bought a track this year to test my sons scout cars this year. Last year we built a car that ran 3.011 using graphite. What elapsed time should I be trying to achieve on a 35 foot track to achieve a sub 3 second car?
 
We were able to pull off 2.462 using stock but well polished axles and Hob E Lube graphite and 2 gram wheels last year on a car on a 35' wooden track. It won Districts but I can't imagine it would have gone sub 3. Possibly though. It was using the stock wheel slots with the axles glued in place. Steer was set at about 1.5" at 4' but ran straight as an arrow because it wasn't hollowed out and the balance was 1" ahead of the rear axles.

I roughly guessed it was a 3 flat car.
 
jatofau1,
Ideally, you would need to run a car on your track and then run the same car, untouched, on the intended 42' track. From that you could figure the ratio then use that ratio to estimate where you need to be back on your track. Without at least that, it's a crapshoot. Too many variables, as Kinser said.

As an example, we had a scout car, using the slots, stock wheels and axles, four touching, on graphite, go 2.880 on a 42' Besttrack. Sound crazy? They had a laser beam start positioned slightly down from the gate. The first car down broke the beam to start the timer so the cars got a pretty good running start which made the times abnormally low.
 
I have a car that I have run at any pro level track i race on. I use this as my base line, I have to set my track up each time I want to tune so i use these cars as an indication of where I'm at. I also update the data as I confirm my times from the latest race results. If you are only going to race once a year I would build a second car and this year you can run it down the track and record the time and box it up and don't touch it until next year. You could also send your car to a guy who races all the time and have them clock it for you. I believe most guys who race will have test cars as i have explained. Watch out though this can be very addictive!
 
On another note: Would there be any benefit to change a 35' best track with a 26deg hill to a 27.1
deg hill, for test and tune? If you are going to race on a 42 foot 27.1deg hill track.
In other words would the slower speeds from a 35ft track with a 26deg. hill be better to tune on, due to the final 7ft on the 42ft track?
 
plhiatt said:
On another note: Would there be any benefit to change a 35' best track with a 26deg hill to a 27.1
deg hill, for test and tune? If you are going to race on a 42 foot 27.1deg hill track.
In other words would the slower speeds from a 35ft track with a 26deg. hill be better to tune on, due to the final 7ft on the 42ft track?

Not in my opinion. Get as much equal as possible.