Adult Pinewood Derby!

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This is my big obsession. We race by shipping our cars monthly to a location in Utah with a return shipping label so they can send it back after the race. We watch it live on video and it gets posted on YouTube after a couple days.

I believe quite a few of the other racers have Asperger's. Some are engineers, some just have that mentality. I race pinewood derby cars against other adults across the US. I am currently the 7th ranked in the world.

There is SO much more that meets the eye to get a 5 ounce car down a 42 foot track. Weight distribution (put it as far back as you can!), friction (we evolved past graphite as a lubricant and usually use Du Pont Krytox 100 oil), aerodynamics, wheel weight, tuning the amount of steer to get it to run straight down the track, etc. There are always advances to be discovered to make a simple gravity powered car more efficient.

It's FUN with PHYSICS!

That's pretty crazy.

I still have my car (somewhere) from back when I was in cub scouts, I can't even remember if it did well or not.

I kept mine from that time as well. 3rd, 4th, and 3rd. Went to districts the first year and got annihilated.

Now I help scouts build better cars and they never lose until they get to the national championship in Omaha. Almost every one of them gets some sort of trophy, but there, you are competing against the other adult league racers because wealthy parents will buy cars from the fastest league racers for hundreds of dollars to win the big trophy.

My scouts usually bring home one trophy from nationals though. Just not the big one. Not yet.

I have a one lane test track with a digital timer on it in my living room. That helps test all the adjustments I make.

OK, this is seriously cool. Wishing you even more success!

Thank you!

That's a very neat idea!

I still have my two pinewood derby cars from scouts. I never won with any of them, but I went over the top with the design. My first car was loosely modeled after a 1930's racecar with the rounded rear end, and my second car was a sports car-like car with fenders. We added extra pieces to the sides to widen the width.

I've considered building other car modeled after movie and TV vehicles. I think that would be neat.

We must REALLY think alike then, because my first pinewood derby car was modeled after the same type of car with an oval grille design. 3rd grade. Was yours dark green as well?

In the adult leagues, we have to make ours a quarter inch thick because our finishes are so close, aero matters. We can't go thinner than that because we use quarter inch tungsten cubes (usually four rows of 6) in the back for weight.

However, there is a class called Street Rod where you make it look like a real car. The Corvettes always seem to win that though because of the aerodynamic design. You can find all of our races on YouTube.

Look for Cramjet. I don't race the Street Rod class though. That would be extra difficult because in all classes, you want the car body itself to be light with all the weight jammed as far back as you can. Our cars are typically not even painted, but rather a wooden frame wrapped in colored vinyl or mono-kote.

I didn't know that adults raced these things too. I'll have to check those out on YouTube.

My first car was actually gold, and the one with the fenders was a dark gloss-red with a fire truck theme.

One project idea that has been kicking around is to make KITT from Knight Rider or Bandit 1 from Smokey & The Bandit. I don't know if I would actually race such a thing though. I was thinking more along the lines of display, but I have thought about maybe at least making them race ready weight wise though.

If you want to make it race ready, I can teach you everything I know. Message me and I will send you contact information.