What would the experts do

[savageone]

Last year, my lion cub and I did well in our first ever derby race. He finished first amongst the Lions and third overall in the pack. We built the car backwards and then removed .3 in of wood from the rear and glued it onto the front. We must use the original axle slots. We built a 3 wheel RR car with 2.5 degree negative canted rear wheels, DFW with a positive camber, COM at 3/4 inch. The tracks are old and wooden with one track having an obvious bad lane(maybe 32 ft long). When the races first started and the graphite was fresh it didn't matter which lane our car was put in, we would win...even the bad lane. But, as my Lion progressed through the rest of the levels in the pack, our car was out of graphite compared to other cars that had fewer runs on them. In the finals, both cars won one race out of 2 on the first track. We then went to the second track and the same thing happened. Each car won one race. Since it was a tie of 2 wins each, the tie breaker was to run the cars backwards. I knew immediately that our car would lose due to the aggressive COM set up,adding .3 on the front,RR, and our car being out of graphite. My question is...to try to prevent this from happening again this year....what would you do? My thoughts are to go with a less aggressive COM of 7/8 or 1 inch. What do you think?
We used tungsten cubes,but we had a hard time getting all the weight in the rear of the car referring to the "Triangulation" (3cubdad) method. We are considering using the new tungsten plates,but we have to keep the axle slots visible per the rules. Should we sacrifice cutting the .3" off the rear and keep it there to allow more room for adding the tungsten weight/plates? Should we abandon the triagulation method and just try to remove more wood from the front and put more tungsten in the rear ,but not worrying about biasing the weight to the DFW side of the rear of the car?
The "triangulation" method was easier said than done, at least for us.

[5KidsRacing]

Hey savageone!

Running the car backwards to resolve a tie is a totally lame rule...

I don't have any advice how to build a car that would win in the scenario you wrote above, but I do have some advice. Resolve the issues that got you in the tiebreaker in the first place and just win outright. It sounds like you have the car set-up right so work on your wheels, axles and burnishing. Make sure you have a quality axle sanding kit and final polish and then clean them well with alcohol. Make sure your wheel bores are getting the same attention and then burnish them well. Shoot for around a 3/4" COM but don't worry too much about it, if it ends up being 7/8" that's fine. Don't worry so much about triangulation.... I have ran faster cars that have the weight centered. I am sure there is some merit in triangulation but it's not going to be your "smoking gun" so to speak. Work on the basics and do them well.

[derbydominator]

Savageone,

I agree with 5kids on the tiebreaker option. That is a horrible idea. On the tracks for the tiebreakers, I assume you are doing a visible only test for win/lose as opposed to a timer. Are you running same lanes as in 1/2 for the first race and then 2/1 on the lanes for the second race? Visually judging a tie breaker on cars that are just an inch or so apart is nearly impossible. I imagine with the heats setup, the two cars in the tiebreaker would have run the same amount of heats each before getting to the finals. If so, then they are even on graphite. If not, then I would suggest that each car have the option to add graphite prior to the finals. I have seen rules where they allow graphite treatment prior to the finals heats and seen rules where they don't as long as it is even for the cars as they proceed through the stages.

As for the track, are you seeing any wobbles or issues with the cars being thrown off the track at the transition stages or other issues. If so, then a less aggressive COM could be warranted, but it seems like a proper rail rider setup and 3/4" should be fine. Again, though if you are seeing cars with issues on the track, then that is reason enough to go less aggressive. Keep in mind that you have space between the axles to add weights as well. As for the triangulation method, it is fairly simple. Draw a triangle connecting the three points where the axles enter the car body. Draw a line across that triangle 3/4" in front of the rear axle. Find the point on that line that is equidistant from both sides of the triangle and that is your center. It should be roughly 1/8" to the dominant side of the middle of the car or better said; 3/4" from the dominant side of the car body. Then balance your weights laterally based on that centerpoint. See, easy?!?!?! Also, like 5kids said, just go straight up if you feel uncomfortable with it. Doing it wrong by too much is worse than not doing it at all.