pinewood derby car trophy picture

Pinewood Derby Car Help

How to Build a Fast Pine Car

Pinewood Derby Winner

		How can you build a fast pinewood derby car?
FREE Derby Help Car Design Ideas How to Build a Fast Car Derby Driver's License! Derby Award Certificates Derby Car Pictures! Pinewood Derby History Pinewood Derby Rules Free Secret Speed Hint How to Build Derby Stand Designing your Car Car Design Plans Design car in Six Steps Winning Speed Secrets Building your Car Precision Drilled Block Pre Cut Cars Complete Car Kits! Make your Car Fast Axles Wheels PRO Tools Graphite and Lube Weights Speed Products Win your Race PRO Axles PRO Wheels Winning Secrets Accessories Hot Decals Wood Filler Sandpaper Paint Kits Buyers Guides Beginners - start here Experts - how to win! Information Site Map Support About Pinewood Pro Endorsements We give back to BSA! Your Shopping Cart Why Pinewood Pro? Other Privacy Policy Scouting Directory Pinewood Derby Links Link to Pinewood Pro		Answer: To build a fast pinewood derby car, you need to reduce friction. Friction is the enemy of speed. Reduce friction, increase speed. This short tutorial gives you is a list of friction reducers that will help you make a fast, competitive car. It is by no means a comprehensive list of speed secrets. For more how-to information, there are several excellent sources of winning secrets listed at the bottom of this article. Friction DOWN, Speed UP Your pinewood car moves from the pull of gravity and is slowed down from friction. Friction acts like brakes. Reduce friction and your car goes faster. Increase friction and your car slows down. Friction DOWN, Speed UP It’s as simple as that. Finding the sources of friction and finding ways to reduce it is the tricky part. Here are some ways to reduce friction and increase speed… What is friction? Friction is caused when two surfaces rub together. The rougher the surface, the more friction there is between those two surfaces and the slower your car goes. Read on to see how to reduce friction... Lubrication How to reduce friction? An easy way to reduce friction in your pine car is to lubricate the two surfaces. This is an essential part of pinewood derby racing. Purchase a tube of graphite and sprinkle a little on the axles near the wheel. Spin the wheel so the graphite works in. You will immediately notice a significant improvement in the wheel speed as you turn it after applying graphite. Another good lubricant, if your rules allow it, is Nyoil II. Nyoil is a highly refined thin-film oil. Only one or two small drops on your axles reduces friction throughout your race because Nyoil stays on your axles long after graphite has dropped off in the later heats. See more details on this new lube idea in Graphite and Lubes. Axles Your wheels turn on axles. One of the biggest sources of friction is where the axles and wheel surfaces meet. It is important to make your axles as smooth as possible. Be absolutely sure that the burr under the nail head is filed or sanded off. Once that is sanded off, polish the nail and underside of the head to a mirror like finish. Wheels Imperfections in your wheels cause friction in many areas. Sanding your wheels, however, can be tricky. If the wheels are not precision sanded or lathed, you can actually make matters worse! Wheels can become unbalanced, wobble, or even cause more friction if they are not prepared correctly. Therefore, without shamelessly plugging our own products, I would suggest purchasing precision lathed wheels or tools that help you do a good job preparing your wheels. Sorry, no easy way out of this one. The least expensive thing you can do is purchase matched wheel sets that have been proven to increase speed slightly. Matched wheels come from the same mold and therefore are exactly the same. Speed from Gravity Your car moves from the force of gravity. If your car is too light, it will have less pull from gravity. Be sure your car weighs as close to 5 oz as possible. Find someone with a scale, purchase an inexpensive scale or weigh your car at the Post Office. Add weights until the car with the wheels and axles is up to 5 oz. Don’t wait until race night to get this right! When I managed our pinewood derby race, there was always a scramble before the race to weigh cars and bring them up to 5 oz. Making your pine car go straight This can be tricky. Roll your car along the kitchen floor. If it veers to the right or left too much, the axles are crooked. Just like steering a car, you need to adjust the steering on your Derby Car. To do this, you must adjust one or more of the axles so the car rolls straight. You can do this by re-drilling the axle holes and re-inserting the axles. Wheel imperfections can also make your car veer left or right. Once again, lathed wheels will remove mold imperfections so each wheel rolls perfectly straight. How to win your pinewood derby race To win the race, you’ll need to learn the speed secrets from the experts. If you are serious about speed, spend a few dollars to download our Winning Pinewood Derby Secrets book that contains over 30 speed secrets or...start the long process of trial and error like I did. Whatever you do, have fun, do your best and happy racing!
		Pinewood Derby Help
		Pinewood derby help is here! The experts at Pinewood Pro have been racing and managing pinewood derby races for years…As an engineer, I have designed the most complete list of speed secrets in my #1 selling book, Winning Pinewood Derby Secrets. Most people pick up the basic hints from friends or seaching the internet but to be a winner, you need to know all the secrets! Winning Pinewood Derby Secrets If you are a beginner, consider Pinewood Derby in Six Steps, which takes you through the car building process step by step with complete illustrations. It also provides a bonus section on Speed Essentials to show you how to prepare your axles and reduce friction so you have a competitive car. It even includes three simple cut-out car design templates so you have everything you need to build a competitive car. Pinewood Derby In Six Steps Finally, our Science of Speed book and DVD explain some of the principles behind speed. The DVD contains a nice segment on how to make your pine car go straight. The Science of Speed
		If you like our pinewood derby design guide, please consider a link exchange with Pinewood Pro so other racers benefit too...
		Linking to Pinewood Pro is easy! Just copy and paste the following into your website
		Pinewood Derby Car Supersite – Your source for high performance derby help! You can build a winning pinewood derby car with our design plans, polished axles, lathed wheels, free guides and tips, plus full line of speed products. or visit our linkinfo page for shorter desciptions or to download the Pinewood Pro logo to spice up your links. To link your site with Pinewood Pro: 1. email the pinewood pro link you added to your site 2. include your site information and we will add your site to Pinewood Pro favorite links.
		Linking is as easy as that!


Home	Books Build Your Car in Six Easy Steps Winning Pinewood Derby Secrets Car Designs Pinewood Derby Car Design Plans Precision Drilled Block Pre-cut Derby Cars Derby Car Pictures!	Speed Products PRO Axles PRO Wheels PRO Tools Lubes Weights Wood Filler, Sandpaper	Helpful Site Info Site Map About Pinewood Pro Your Shopping Cart Free Hint Endorsements Support Why Pinewood Pro? Please link to Pinewood Pro
Pinewood Pro™ © Copyright 1999-2006 Pinewood Pro ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Pinewood Derby Car Help - How to Build a fast pine car