How to run a Derby

A successful Pinewood Derby requires lots of planning and many volunteers to help with the event. Based on our experience in Greater Christchurch Zone from running Pinewood Derby events for many years, this guide outlines the things you need to consider when planning a derby and outlines our approach for running a derby event.

Most Groups and Zones hold their Pinewood Derby in Term 3. Winter is a good time to be in the workshop woodworking, and this fits in with the National Pinewood Derby that is usually held late term 3 or early term 4.

We recommend you start planning for your derby at least 3 months in advance. If you are making a track, or organising your own car kits, it will take time to get these together.

Establish derby committee: Get a team together to help planning and organising the event.

Select date and location: Book a venue (Scout hall, school gym, community centre) that can accommodate your track, participants and spectators.

Set the Rules: The Torlesse Car Kits include a well-established set of rules for building cars, which are based on the standard Scouting America Pinewood Derby car dimensions. This makes the kits compatible with most pinewood accessories available on the market. The rules are carefully worded to avoid the most common issues we have come across over the years, and include some handy tips for car builders. The same rules are typically used for National Pinewood Derby since the majority of participants use the Torlesse kits.

Order Car Kits: Order your car kits in plenty of time. If you are sourcing your own materials, allow time to order wheels, get timber machined and cut etc. The Torlesse Car Kits are prepared in May/June and are usually ready for shipping from mid-June so they can be distributed before the end of term 2.

• Buy: Pinewood Derby tracks are not available within New Zealand, so buying a track from overseas and having it shipped here will be an expensive purchase. This might be funded by a sponsorship from a local business, fundraising, or a grant. Good commercial pinewood tracks are typically made from aluminium, run very smooth and fast, and have options for electronic timers. If looked after, they should last for a very long time so could be a good investment. Top rated brands include Best Track, SuperTrack and Derby Magic.
• Build: Most groups use a track made by a handy parent or leader. These are typically made from plywood, or plain or laminated MDF. The top of the track typically has a mechanism to release the cars simultaneously (a simple bar, or linked pins that drop in the track). Each lane has a raised centre “rail” that the car straddles to keep it running straight. See this post for ideas for track plans.
• Borrow: Many Scout Groups have pinewood tracks that they lend or hire (to cover wear and tear). Even if a bit of travel is involved to collect and return a track, this will be less time than making a track.

It you are keeping things low key, and are not too concerned about final placings, you can let the youth pick who they race against, or just put them in a line and cycle through the line.

For more structured racing you can use round robin, elimination, or double elimination brackets and you can find websites that will generate these brackets for you for a given numbers of participants. The disadvantage of this approach is that some participants are eliminated early and have less races than others.

The method GCZ has always used is the “Partial Perfect N” (PPN) scheduling algorithm which was developed by Scout leaders in the USA over 25 years ago. PPN is very fair, allows for a known number of heats for everyone, and keeps everyone involved in the racing right to the end. PPN scheduling ensures:

• Each car races in each lane the same number of times
• Each car races a variety of opponents (as many as possible)
• Each cars heats are spread throughout the race (to keep them engaged)

This online tool can be used to generate a PPN race schedule for any number of cars.

If participants are new to Pinewood Derby, there will be a reasonable variance in car speeds and it can be manageable to have finish line judges manually record finish placings. Are your racers get better at making cars, heats will be much closer, and a timer becomes necessary to just the results. Its not uncommon for cars to finish only 100th’s of a second apart.

Scheduling and judging races can be made easier with purpose made Pinewood Derby race software. Software options include:

• GrandPrix Race Manager: This commercial software is about US$80 and has been around for many years. It has many add-on options, works with most derby timers, and supports several race scheduling methods including PPN schedules. The software works on Windows and Mac.
• DerbyNet: Is relatively new software, but seems to be quickly becoming the modern standard. It is free, open-source, and browser-based, allowing spectators to view live results on their phones. It supports distributed, multi-platform setups and can be hosted on a Raspberry Pi computer. DerbyNet also uses PPN scheduling.

For the Christchurch derby we use a custom built timer and custom software (sorry, not readily shareable) that has evolved over several years to fit the way we run out derby. It works in a similar way to DerbyNet and I would recommend DerbyNet for groups looking for derby software.

Consider the approach you adopt for youth making pinewood cars.

• Separate to section nights: If your term programme is full of other activities, or you don’t have the woodworking expertise available to do it as a group, youth can take car kits home to make with an adult partner in their own time. This approach has the unique advantage of engaging families in a Scouting event away from section nights and can lead to a livelier derby as the time parents have put into helping with car making gives them a vested interest in the racing outcomes.
• Part of section nights: Alternatively, you can organise helpers with woodworking skills and tools to come along to Kea/Cub/Scout nights and have everyone make pinewood cars together as a group.

The former approach tends to give more scope for individual creativity and maximises parent-child teamwork, whereas the later approach can enable youth to participate that may not otherwise have access to the skills or tools required to do so.

For our derby we invite and encourage leaders, parents, grand parents, siblings etc to also make pinewood cars to race. We have had more than one parent volunteer as a leader following involvement in Pinewood Derby as a parent. We used to have all non-Scouts race in separate Open class races. Now that we have Guides of all ages participating in our derby, our racing classes are split purely on age.

If participants are making cars away from Scout nights, consider organising a car building workshop for those that need some help.  This could be an evening, week-end event or even a camp.  Have parents bring along tools such as scroll saws, band saws, sanders, rotary tools etc.  Youth can draw out their design on their pine block and get help to cut it out and shape it. Experienced builders can show them how to lubricate and align the wheels.

 The practise night serves several purposes:

• It serves as a thorough test of the track, timer and derby software, allowing any issues to be identified in plenty of time to fix them before the derby.
• First time derby participants are sometimes unsure what to expect at the derby or are worried their car might not work on the track. They welcome the opportunity to check their cars runs OK and have any questions answered.
• Experienced derby participants who want to optimise their times can use the event to test different setups and tune their car.

The Greater Christchurch Zone derby has participants from 28 Scout Groups, plus many youth from Guides.  With around 500 racing we split our derby into multiple “Divisions” (time slots) over the course of a week-end so that each Division has up to about 30 participants.  We have found that over this number, the racing goes on a bit long for some attention spans.

For each Division, youth are at the derby for about 2 hours. The time table for each Division is:

30 mins: Check-in and Scrutineering

15 mins: Car Judging

45 mins: Racing

15 mins: Award Presentation

15 mins: Fun tracks

Once all cars are checked in and on the judging table, we invite participants to vote for their 3 favourite cars.  We give them 3 “pinewood sticks” (coloured match sticks) and they vote by placing them in small containers in front of each car.  They can vote for their own car if they like.  Leaders also select winners for “best craftsmanship”, “best design”, “best paint job”, “creative use of materials” etc.

Once the judging is finished, racers collect their cars ready for racing.

We give each participant 8 races, comprising two rounds of 1 race in each lane (4 lane track). 

For each heat, the race software shows the racers names and car numbers on a large screen, and announces the heat.  Racers take their car up and place in on the start of the track in the correct lane, and then go to the finish line to watch the race.  The Race Starter leader double checks the correct cars are in the right lanes and starts the race.  Heat placings and points are shown on a screen.  Youth then collect their cars and return to their seats until their next heat.

With this system we average about 1 heat every 45 seconds, allowing for 30 participants to have 8 races each in about 45 minutes.

As a bonus activity after the racing, we also have a couple of single lane tracks racers can try just for fun.  One has a full loop-de-loop followed by humpy and wiggly sections.  The challenge is for the car to make it around the loop and stay on the track to the end without being thrown off.  The second track is like a ski jump.  Racers can dare their friends to lie on the ground and have their car jump over them onto a bean bag.