Need some advice.... Pinewood derby time!

[BigGobbler]

no no no on the Graphite! Use sex lube and burn your wheels in, no drag and outperforms graphite big time and its legal.

[woodwzrd]

He ended up telling me he sanded the wheels, so that only a small rim touched the track.   Not sure if that is legal on a regulation track, but that is what he said was THE trick.

Official BSA rules state that the only thing you can do to the wheels is remove the mold line that is sometimes left from the injection molding process and polish them. When I was a kid my dad always rounded the wheels a bit so there was less surface area on the track. I tried the same thing with my son's car a couple of years ago and they DQed the car. They still let him run but he wasn't allowed to place. To bad because he would have placed in the top three.

Make sure to read the rules that come with the car and find out exactly what the track rule are. Most important don't get so crazy competitive like some dads get so that it ruins it for your son. If you want to really have fun talk your Cub Master into having a class for just the dads. Our pack does a sibling class and a dads class.

Good luck and have fun

[leroy]

Lets just say that my son won a couple and leave it at that. You can polish the wheels. The 2 best things you can do to be fast is not use the slots in the wood for the axles. Find the right size drill bit (we ordered one) and drill new holes for the axles using a drill press. Make the wheel base longer by drilling closer to the fromt and back. And my little secret: put the wheels and axles in a rock tumbler with some grapite. Them puppies will be smooth as a baby's butt and Fassssst. Oh yea and definatly only have 3 wheels touching when its all finished which usually happens anyway.