10 secrets to winning the pinewood derby

hi today we're gonna be talking about Pinewood derbies again I love Pinewood Derby I have raced with my boys for several years now we built lots of winning cars and I have spent all kinds of money on stuff I didn't need classes I took things like that because I enjoyed the science of it you know I'm taking classes for physicists and all kinds of things that I purchased and I've I've set up four programs that were from professional racers just to get that little extra tip big thing I've learned is that the harder you work the better off you'll be okay what I mean by that is the Pinewood Derby is not won by these big items that have come in and actually done things you know you you I can't say that okay do this and that you win the race I can tell you if you work very very hard and spend lots of time on every single item we talked about today you will have a very good chance of winning the race if not almost guaranteed in a scout race now the the first thing we're gonna be talking about here is this is the ten points is what it says on the thing it's really about 11 points 11 points that will help you build a car that is almost unbeatable okay remember what I mean by that is the more time you spend on every single one of these the closer you get to being unbeatable okay the first one is probably mine the one I would say would be the most important which is weight placement and weight placement being where the weight is in the car relationship to the balance of the car so basically we want the car to balance at about the axles right here about one inch to 3/4 of an inch in front of the back wheels okay if you're not working is hard on a perfection car I'd probably get a little closer that one one and a quarter inches in front of the axle if you've done everything you can you know you're going into a race where it's all or nothing bringing it back to 3/4 of an inch is in sometimes is very helpful that's usually where I run is about 3/4 of an inch but it does take a lot of work to get a car that runs straight enough to be able to run that far back because what ends up happening is when the car if it's too heavy in the rear will basically pop a wheelie and wiggle down the track wiggling is bad anything we can do to stop any wiggle as it goes down the track is a good thing the rougher the tracks the more the Wiggles the more we want to try to stop that okay so basically we want all of that weight to be as far back as possible okay next thing we have here is wheel base wheel base on the car so I've had all different kinds of cars you can kind of see the cars I've had down here that have had all different kinds of wheel bases I've had long wheel bases I've been short wheel bases some of the races say you have to use the wheel base that comes with the car the actual slots that come with the car that length if that's the case remember we want our back wheels as far back as we can if we have a preference and there's not a rule that says we can move the wheel base around we want the back axles as close to the back as possible so this particular car we based most of our cars at about five eighths of an inch makes it pretty safe so they don't extend past the back of the car as you can see this is a five eighths and it just barely underneath I could go a little tighter but if I'm running blocks tungsten blocks in the back of the car I won't be able to get as far back so some of the thing about there as far as from the axle wheel base to the front this is a five-inch car you can go as low as four and three quarters and still be very very fast I'm you know you know five inches is where you want to be if you're being a little more conservative four and three-quarters if you're trying to really neck it down doesn't sound like a lot but these little Mike girl mounts is what actually makes you win okay the next one canted wheels okay this means that the back wheels are going to be canted into the car so they can't hit so they'll actually be canted in this way we drilled our holes in the back yet three degrees so there's a three degree can't sew that axle is coming down the back of the car on both sides at three degrees and this keeps the back wheels from hitting the car and helps them ride out to the edges and the front wheel on the other hand we have a reverse can't it actually can't down to the front and we do that with a bending the axle so we actually bent this axle down so that it bends at about three to five degrees three degrees to be a little bit more safe five degrees if you want to be a little more aggressive and what that gives you is a car that's terrible I can actually adjust that wheel and make the car steer I want to talk about that in a second so our next thing here is so remember three inches that are three degrees in the back three to five in the front of that bent axle this wheel doesn't do anything at all unless you really have to and then it's a matter of if you have to run a four-wheel car taking this bending this axle and then tilting it down so it just touches as you run the car along the ground wheel weight wheel weight is probably the biggest cheat and the most important thing you worry about if it is not setting your rules I always recommend if you're in charge of the race to ban lightweight wheels or purchased wheels or wheels that have been lightened beyond the standard of the wheel about you know two point three grams okay is about the lightest you can get one of these wheels to go usually you'll you'll sit there and you'll be able to tell that it's been lightened by you know not having any of the marks on the wheel and the wheel being really super thin almost a point of where you can push in with your fingers real floppy that will kill a car no matter what it does I mean you could build if you built two cars identical you weight the wheels at that one glam which is the best wheels you can get you're going to beat every car you can so if you're in a race where it is not stated whether you can do this you have to try to lighten these wheels as much as you can and still follow the rules okay that will improve your speed when it comes to then we talked about three wheel riding cars okay so this is it will just kind of pop this one in and what I mean by that is this is your rail riding technique this is something that all the professional racers do now we basically take we take all the wheels so the two backs are touching the front wheel is not and or the front this front wheel is not and then you have a dominant front wheel that steers the car now we do something that most of you are gonna say that's craziness but what we're gonna do is we are actually going to tilt the car we're actually going to drive the car into the rail and the reason is is because that wobbling is so detrimental it's better that it actually rides the rail all the way down so what we're gonna do is we're gonna turn that front wheel so we're gonna bring the back wheels out so they're touching and that front wheel we're gonna turn into the rail so normally we would talk about making a car go as straight as possible and I did that for years I tried to sit there and I worked really really hard to make sure it went perfectly now I have a board that actually has a line on it and I turn the car one to three inches of steer over four feet one being less aggressive so if you haven't done a lot of work to your car and you're worried it's gonna have some issues that one inches I've won lots of races with one and so steer you're trying to get that extra little hit of extra power and you know the rest of your car is perfect where you can actually sacrifice some of that some of the steers sorry about that you can actually sit there and take that car and steer it into the center of the track about three inches over four feet so that's definitely preferable our next one is gonna be so three wheels this wheel doesn't do anything and then aerodynamic shape now this is something it does play a role most people say that doesn't but it actually does you put a square block up here I'll kill you every single time the thinner you can make the block the better this is a car that was designed to run with weights the circular weights I like this cuz really easy to do no router ring you basically have a drill this is what I help most people build as a car like this I still keep the car as flat as I can and I try to keep those weights as far back as I can but I have the three system the three whole system in the back and then I try to hollow out the bottom the cars best I can with a drill that way you're not using routers and things like that which a lot of kids just can't use so if you're really trying to have your child do it this is preferable now you can thin the car out quite a little bit by running tungsten cube weights so the actual cubes and you'll line them up along the back that's why we run a five a five eighths axle so we didn't put two rows of tungsten cubes in the back so something to think about and then we all want the rest the car to add weights as we need to so aerodynamics get the car as small and as thin as possible pretty simple stuff nothing real big small and thin as possible the next one polished axles okay this is where I've seen people go crazy again this is where you can buy polish axles and the axles and a pinewood derby car basically nails they're just simple nails no real big deal there then we've got how much do we polish them to okay if you are polishing for oil you must polish every bit that you possibly can to make it work so the more polish you can get on those wheels the better in other words you just get them to a mirror now the way I usually have found is that I usually polish my axles I run graphite I recommend you make all of your cars run graphite because it's cheap it's really easy for most people to do if you are running professionally you cannot run graphite you will lose every single time but in the Pinewood Derby side of this graphite is cheap three bucks some of the best stuff money can buy six bucks and it's really easy to use put more on run it a few times put more on run it a few times real super simple so definitely you know that kind of idea but polishing axles I polished to about two thousand grit sometimes I'll go up as high as three thousand if I know I'm in a race where I'm really gonna have to be competing with people but that takes extra time it's hard to get your kids to sit there and polish for three hours on it on to get all four wheels polished and ready to go axle gap okay this is another one so we take a axle gap gauge and we stick it underneath in between the wheel and the car body and we gap that you can do this with a business card works pretty well those thicker business cards are a little better anywhere from about 15,000 to 30,000 seven-inch if you've got really nice ones thirty thousands is really safe fifteen thousand so if you're really trying to put it down on the race and be really competitive so you know this is a thirty thousand stage I really like this one because it tends to be pretty safe I can always kind of go with that if you ever get your wheels big and and loose one ends up happening is every single time you get a bump and you're going to hit bumps and the best tracks in the world there's always still a bump that wheel will bounce way way out you're not thinking of it as that big of a deal it is it's a huge deal and that will cause that car to slow down as it goes down the track so we wanted to bounce out and then come right back into place and if you've got your wheels canted it will it will bounce out and then it will bring it right back into place and hold those wheels out to the outside edge what we want as little bounce as possible and the last one is and this is our 11th thing here and I don't think it's as big as deal as it used to be used to be you had to spend time on wheels like crazy because that was super super important I put this on the bottom of the list because I don't think it's as important now if you're racing competitively it is super important but as you're racing for the normal person a decent wheel that you purchase I always recommend buying the the Pinewood Derby by Ravel approved wheels they come with a decent set axles a decent set of wheels that are matched I think match the wheels are more important than anything I'm a big fan of a couple different ones pick the one that you work that you like twos and 15 seem to be really popular just matters on whoever said this wheel is a little better than this wheel but I like the idea it's a matched wheel the axles come a little better than the ones that come in your kit they are BSA approved wheels and they do come stock so there's no modifications done to highly recommend this over any of the other wheels out there you can purchase or they come in a kit because you never know what you're gonna get you're gonna get a bunch of different ones so when it comes to this we are going to go sorry about that I lost my timer there we are gonna flatten the top as best as possible if you'd like something like this a little wheel lathe or a way to flatten the wheel as best you can cuz that goes on there and it allows the wheel to be flattened we also on the front wheel want to smooth out this area on the side and we want to polish the inside of the axle so some things that kind of help with that you can use toothpaste you can use all kinds of things these little Tobias swabs here that they're appointed q-tip basically you can buy them all or place there's usually a small medium and large these tend to be the mediums you know you're gonna have to kind of look and see which ones fit best for your wheels you know that kind of an idea to make sure that you're looping the inside and we're talking five seconds with your polish and that's it you know a nice plastic polish you can buy all kinds of products out there that come from the actual companies which is great you know put it in there swap it out awesome okay five six seconds that's all you need wash it out real good the biggest problem is people leave goop in there wash it out real good with it with a pipe cleaner and then wash it with alcohol and let it dry completely before you add your graphite on the top make sure it's flat make sure it's smoothed out make sure you don't have any hops in it the angle is not as important as the hops so as it comes around we don't want the hop that we all bouncing up and down we're not too worried about because we've already got canted axles whether it's sets on the on being perfectly flat or not it's not as big a deal as not having the hops so I polished the outside to about a thousand to fifteen hundred polish here and then I polished all the different areas with that and then I use my polish on the inside for that particular procedure I'll tell you what I do buy all the time for my wheels these are nail files that are six sided they are seven sided they have all different kinds of grit I started as a three grit and work my way all the way up to the seven polish and I'm just polishing it and getting the grooves or any marks they made from my polish out you know I mean as far as you know sanding one so I want to get rid of all those marks so definitely you know make sure you're putting your your weights as far back as you can I'm a real big fan of these tungsten carbide weights if you're using round weights you can buy the cheaper ones here they work great for 90% of races if you do the other items you're looking for that extra touch what I really like is I can set there and just put these smallest amount in there and I can actually flatten it out so I get everything in there and then I'm going to sit there and then go ahead and put my last weights in there and that's basically all the weights I need for this car I'm go ahead and put my wheel back on gap it and then I'm going to set it on the on the actual item and I balance the car until it balances this car balance is about one inch and so this car balance is about one inch this would be fairly conservative you could make it even a little better lighten up that car even more the more you can dig out of the bottom car these are a couple cards we've done in the past where we've lightened them up as much as we humanly can so the weights in the back here but everything else is completely Hull now if you guys could see this on camera and I held the light you know the car up to the light you can actually see through this piece of wood here when it isn't painted so definitely an advantage this one has fenders if you're racing competitively put fenders on I don't recommend it for the kids they're fairly hard for them to make and then you're basically making the car at that point so the other the last thing is to make sure that you narrow out the car in the front for the wheel so it can't it actually is about a sixteenth of an arrow an inch narrower in the front here just on the front wheel so it rides on the front and the rest of the car stays away from the track so that's basically if you follow those rules every bit you can make a little farther so the more you polish the more technical you get the more you weigh your tires you know get a bunch of tires together and weigh them the better off you're gonna be every step counts every little bit helps so as always have a great day

Channel: Blackbear Prepper

Views: 100,855

Rating: 4.598886 out of 5

Keywords: Pinewood derby, Scout car, Scouts, Cub Scouts, tips and tricks

Id: OlglNeY222c

Length: 18min 58sec (1138 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 30 2018