Which graphite runs are fastest on cub scout car?

[bluhorshue]

Wanted to thank everyone here as my son just won his pack race and is on to districts. Couldn't have done it without the knowledge learned here. I did have a concern with the graphite prep (used Zero Friction) though, as the car had to do 10 runs (technical issues required a few races to be run more than once) and there were 2 noticeably slower runs on I think the 5th and 6th run. Strangely, the last 4 runs were all faster again with run 7 or 8 setting the track record. I just packed the car with graphite and didn't spin the wheels at all thinking (maybe mistakenly) that it would last longer.

Anyway, is this normal for a car running graphite? Is there any way to get more consistent results? Should I have spun the wheels? Last year our car only had 4 runs at districts because we didn't make it past the first cut, but is there any way to at least maximize the first 4-5 runs? Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

[CivilWarTalk]

I think your question is hard to evaluate. I don't know what kind of track you ran on, but it could have just been slow lanes, wood tracks are notorious for that, and aluminium tracks need to be cared for and cleaned, so a slow lane is possible on any type of track.

Another thing to think about is staging, the person putting the car in the lane may not be taking much care to make the car straight and may favor one side or other of the slot, those can all be huge factors in unexpectedly slow runs.

One last thing to consider before the graphite would be traffic on the track. Was the car in the lane next to yours ahead of yours causing your car to run in it's wake? This can throw the times of slightly.

I think it's typical for graphite cars to have their best times on runs 4 through 8, but then they start to fall off. That might get thrown off if the axle and bore are still shedding excess graphite on the first one or two runs.

 

[Pacfanweb]

Anecdotal, but at District last year, my son's car had its fastest runs in run 1 and run 6. The first and the last run.

 

[Pinewoodguy]

"Anecdotal, but at District last year, my son's car had its fastest runs in run 1 and run 6. The first and the last run."

Could that have coincided with being in Lane 1 and Lane 6? That would have given you clean air, hence the faster times.

 

[TRE]

when i test on my single lane track... the first couple are then it starts to fall off

 

[Pacfanweb]

"Anecdotal, but at District last year, my son's car had its fastest runs in run 1 and run 6. The first and the last run." Could that have coincided with being in Lane 1 and Lane 6? That would have given you clean air, hence the faster times.

Possible. But the fastest runs this year on the same track were in the center lanes, so go figure.