Racing Format

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This page describes the race method that will be used for the 2005 Sully District Pinewood Derby

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All Scouts will compete within their Rank, one Rank at a time, using final-standing charts. There will be a large elimination round in which all Scouts in the Rank will race, followed by a finals round in which only top performers from the elimination round will race.

Let's take the Tigers, for example. Suppose there are 35 of them. Then a 35-car, 4-lane racing chart will be created, similar to the one below, for the elimination round.

Careful inspection of this chart reveals that each car races 4 times, once per lane. Each car also races against 12 different opponents, which is the most possible given the number of cars and lanes. The heats for each car are spread somewhat evenly throughout the racing chart.

	Lane 1		Lane 2		Lane 3		Lane 4
Heat	Car	Pl.	Car	Pl.	Car	Pl.	Car	Pl.
1	1		3		6		10
2	2		4		7		11
3	12		14		17		21
4	13		15		18		22
5	23		25		28		32
6	24		26		29		33
7	25		27		30		34
8	35		2		5		9
9	11		13		16		20
10	3		5		8		12
11	14		16		19		23
12	22		24		27		31
13	30		32		35		4
14	6		8		11		15
15	17		19		22		26
16	29		31		34		3
17	5		7		10		14
18	16		18		21		25
19	28		30		33		2
20	4		6		9		13
21	15		17		20		24
22	27		29		32		1
23	26		28		31		35
24	7		9		12		16
25	18		20		23		27
26	34		1		4		8
27	10		12		15		19
28	21		23		26		30
29	31		33		1		5
30	8		10		13		17
31	9		11		14		18
32	19		21		24		28
33	20		22		25		29
34	32		34		2		6
35	33		35		3		7

Once all the races have been run, results are tallied and the fastest seven cars move on to the finals round, using a chart similar to this next one.

	Lane 1		Lane 2		Lane 3		Lane 4
Heat	Car	Pl.	Car	Pl.	Car	Pl.	Car	Pl.
1	1		3		5		2
2	2		4		6		3
3	3		5		7		4
4	4		6		1		5
5	5		7		2		6
6	6		1		3		7
7	7		2		4		1
8	1		6		4		7
9	2		7		5		1
10	3		1		6		2
11	4		2		7		3
12	5		3		1		4
13	6		4		2		5
14	7		5		3		6

In this chart, every car races twice in each lane. Every car races every other car four times. Every head-to-head race between two cars has a lane-reversal rematch elsewhere in the chart.

Again, results are tallied and 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place trophies are awarded to the three fastest cars. Results from the elimination round do not carry over into the finals round.

The top two cars from each Rank are invited to compete in the Grand Champion competition at the end of the day.

For the interested, discussions and information about charts and racing formats can be found at:

• Conducting Pinewood Derby Races by Stan Pope
• Derby Race Methods by Darin McGrew

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Last updated on March 3, 2005, 12:00 PM