Anyone have any Pinewood Derby tips/tricks?

Wagin, I never seen a track that was at a complete angle, all the BSA tracks I see have a starting ramp that is about a 1/3 of the track and then runs flat the other 2/3rds


Each district has their own rules as well as each pack, how ever if you get lucky and go further than district, their rules may be stricter and any mods like tapering the tires, using non BSA wheels and axles or shaving the BSA off of the tires will get you disqualified.

I always showed my son what to do and told him he will only do as good as the effort he puts into it, I never liked it when the fathers built the cars. I cut it out for him and re-drilled the axle holes but that is about where my help stopped. It paid off in the long run, he took first in his pack 2 years in a row out of 50+ cars. This was his last year and he didn't put as much effort into it this year so he didn't do as well, I was pretty pleased that he didn't take first again this year because it showed him the effort makes the difference, and I really didn't want to go to district again. You have to sit there all day while they race 500 cars, once you see a couple races, it all looks the same.

The wheels and axles make the difference, the few things I showed my son to do was chuck the wheels in the drill press with a wheel arbor so he could true them up with 400 grit paper, then chuck the axles in the press and use a small fine file to clean all the mold lines up and put a slight cone to the head of the nail and finish them off with 400-600 paper but don't polish to a shine though, the scratches from the paper gives the graphite something to hang onto. Then he put graphite in the wheels and chucked the wheels with the axles in the press and worked the graphite into them.

The weight should be about 70/30 over the rear axle, you want just enough weight in front of the rear axle to keep the front from coming up at the bottom of the ramp, the further to the rear of the car gives gravity more time to push the car down the starting ramp, if it is to the front, the weight pulls the car down the track and will stop pulling once the front of the car gets to the bottom of the ramp.

They also sell an axle jig to re-drill the axle holes, if you lengthen the wheel base as long as you can get it, it helps the car go straight down the track and keeps it from fish tailing, just make sure the overall length isn't too long. Some districts have different rules so he did have to cut a slot in the middle of the bottom of the car so you can see the ends of the axles but that was easy with a dremil.