Stuff You Should Know - How Pinewood Derbies Work

Episode Date: May 14, 2015

Tens of millions of Scouts, and their parents, have taken standard blocks of wood and turned them into cars that zip along at up to 20 mph. Learn about the origin, physics and more of Pinewood Derbies in this episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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What I saw as a weakness of his, I wanted to embrace. The way I thought of it was whatever love I have from you is extra for me. Like, I already love myself enough. Do I need you to validate me as a partner? Yes. Is it required for me to feel good about myself? No. Listen to Chikis and Chill on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there with her timer and wagging her finger, which means it's time to start Stuff You Should Know the podcast. She's got a ruler. She's ready to wrap us on the knuckles. Yeah. Let's get out of line.

It's like a nun. That's right. And Chuck, before we get started, I want to tell everybody they can follow us on Twitter at S-Y-S-K Podcast. Oh yeah. They can join us on Facebook.com slash Stuff You Should Know. Wait, are we going backwards? Uh-huh. Okay. If you want to send us an email, you can send it to StuffPodcast at HowStuffWorks.com. Yeah. And we have a beautiful little website called StuffYouShouldKnow.com where all sorts of other neat stuff happens too. All right, so this listener mail I'm just going to call... Oh wait, sorry. You got to save it. And saving it. Chuck. Yes. Were you in Boy Scouts or Cub Scouts? Nope. I went to one Cub Scout meeting and didn't go back because the very first meeting I was at was their beginning of their candy sale.

The ritual sacrifice? No. The beginning of their candy sale. And I just didn't, as a little kid for some reason, I didn't like my first meeting them saying, here's a bunch of candy. Go sell it. Yeah, but you know, they front you a bunch of candy. They let you walk away with a box of candy. It turned me off and I'm not knocking it. It's a great organization, but I just never went back. I can imagine it's not the best one to start out on. Plus, I was a... I did Cub Scouty Things just in life because I was big into camping and stuff and I was taught wilderness survival at a young age. So I was like, I had my own scouting troop. Your parents just dropped you off in the woods once, right? And made you find your way back? Yeah, it all worked out. Made my way back

about a year later. Yeah. It was no worse for the wear. So you never made a Pinewood Derby car, huh? No. Well, I'd never made a Pinewood Derby car, but in industrial arts class, I made the CO2 racing cars. Remember those? Yeah, I never made one of those. It's sort of like the Pinewood Derby, but it's powered by noxious gases. Right. Is it noxious gas? Now it's actually CO2. Yeah, I think it might be noxious though. Yeah, maybe it is. It's not obnoxious, but it's noxious and that it'll kill you. Well, it's kind of a funny story actually. My brother won, of course, because he's my brother. Sure. Was Alan all of their cheering him on? No. He won the school and then he won county and then he went to state for the... And I don't think he won state. Nobody did

place most handsome. He did. Most handsome racer. And then I, of course, like everything else, I tried to copy my brother, which I'm still doing today. No, you're not. And sure I am. And I tried to copy his design and mine just turned out a little crooked and not quite as straight and I didn't even win in my class, not alone the school. Man. So that just goes to show you my brother's better at everything than me. That is a great story. Yeah, his was awesome, man. That thing flew and mine was like gunk, gunk, gunk, knocking against the track. It was missing a tooth. Yeah. It was a pale impression, pale impersonation. But that is a great lesson. It's like you gotta forge your own way. That's right. You know? My ugly little car.

That's the lesson of this Pinewood Derby episode. You have to create your own Pinewood Derby car and not just figuratively, but metaphorically as well. Well, what's the Pinewood Derby? I think some people, there's a lot of people that are like, oh my God, this is the best. And then the other 98% of you are like, what? So the Pinewood Derby is the nation's premier gravity racing event. It takes place around the country, around this time, I think, right? Does it beat Street Luge? It's a great point. So this is the second best. Okay. A miniature gravity racing. All right. What about Mini Street Luge? Man. And yeah, I think around, it takes place around this time of year. Oh, is it? Yeah. Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts around the country, around the world, I imagine.

And now Girl Scouts too, even. Are they into it now too? They're into it now too. Make little wooden cars and race them. Yeah. And it uses nothing but gravity, the force of gravity, little angular momentum, reduction of friction, that kind of thing, to see whose car is fastest. Yeah. So we'll get to the details in the history, but it's basically, like you said, a track that starts on a hill and has a little, call it a pin, but it's like a little stick, basically, that holds the car in place at the front. And then they pull a lever and those sticks drop and then it's like the starting gate and then it rolls. Right. Because anyone who listened to our Slinky episode, when the cars are up there, pressed against the starting pin, they've got

tons of potential energy. Yeah. Then right when that starting pin is removed, that potential energy turns to kinetic energy and gravity pulls them downward. Yeah, to the tune of like 20 miles an hour. So. But the cool thing about Pinewood Derby racing is that all of the cars start out the exact same. They're blocks of wood with the same wheels, the same axles, and it's up to the Cub Scouts and their derbs and moms to craft this thing, to make it slightly different enough that it wins the race. It beats these other cars that were also the same kinds of blocks of wood that's right before. Yes. Or you're not so concerned with winning and you just want a cool looking car. Yeah. And you want to have a good experience with your parents. That was me with my car,

the Pinewood Derby car I made with my dad. Oh, did you do it? Uh-huh. Really? One most creative is a Coke bottle. No way. Way. And I was looking. Like a real Coke bottle or you got the piece of wood and carved it into a Coke bottle? Yeah, the wood. Okay. Because other people, you know, you can, there's all sorts of things you can do now. Yeah, but you couldn't use a Coke bottle and do it. You'd be disqualified on the spot and maybe laughed out of the place. No, there's like, there's different versions now. Like there can be like the regular hardcore race and then the one that's a little more fun where you can use different. Oh, I got you. I got you. But I mean, that's not the origin. The origin was, like you said, just straight up wood blocks. Right.

So, and let's talk about the origin of this. Well, did you win though? I want to hear about your speed performance. One most creative speed. No, not at all. So, you were into just the cool looking thing. Yeah. As a Cub Scout or Boy Scout? Cub Scout. Did you Boy Scout? No. So, you had enough? I did actually. My dad was the Den parent. Oh, that's nice. I quit mid-season and he continued on as the Den parent. Really? There was more than one awkward Boy Scout meeting at my house where like I just went and hung out in my room. You like wandered through eating a Twinkie? Yeah. My dad was like, I can't believe this. Interesting. So, he stuck it out. Yeah. That's kind of admirable, I guess. I had a thing where I, they, the Cub Scouts teach and Boy Scouts teach that you just

respect your elders like as a rule of thumb. Absolutely. Well, I've met too many elderly people who I didn't feel deserve respect across the board. And then I disputed this idea enough that I left. Wow. Yeah. That's pretty awesome. That was why. I left because I had to sell candy. You left because there were a bunch of jerky old people in your community. I just didn't think that everyone deserves blank respect. I think you earn respect. Absolutely. You know. Hey, that's a pretty forward thinking thing for a little young judge. You just didn't want to go. No, it really was that. You're like, the meetings were the same night at the A-team, so. There was one meeting where I just sat there and watched the A-team really loud while my dad and

the rest of the Scouts were trying to meet. That's pretty good stuff. So yes, my dad and I won, I think it's most creative category for the Coke bottle at Southwick Mall in Toledo, Ohio. That's where they had the races. That's pretty funny. And you still drink like a gazillion coax a day. Not coax. Well, coax zero or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. I've tried to limit it. I don't drink a gazillion, I would say. I drink a lot of water and coffee too. You just, you get beveraged up like no one I've ever seen. No, it's weird, you know. It's like I constantly have to be drinking something. Yeah. I don't get it. Hey, that's your thing. It's no big deal. It's not like you're like downing bottles of vodka all day long.

Just Red Bull. Right. All right. So you want to talk about the history of this thing? Let's. Don Murphy, May 15, 1953 is when the first Pinewood Derby was held in Southern California. Manhattan Beach, California, which is where Umi's and my friend Molly is from. Oh, really? Yep. You can be from worst places in the world. You know who else? It's pretty sweet. Either is from or lives in Manhattan Beach. I looked this up. Who? Kevin Nealon. Owen Wilson. Oh, wow. Don Docken. Uh-huh. And then some other people too. I think our buddy's Luke and Catherine Ryan live in Manhattan Beach. Oh, do they? That is a nice town. Sure. It's like a small town feel on the California's coast, like on the boardwalk. Yeah. That connects like

all the other towns. Pretty nice. It's where the Lost Boys live. Was it? No. I think they were like Santa Cruz or something. Yeah. I think they were a little more north. Yeah. All right. So very nice history of Manhattan Beach residents. 1953. Don Murphy was a Cub Scout leader for Pack 280 and he had some kids that wanted to, because there's this other race called the Soapbox Derby. This is when you actually put your child in this thing to be injured and put and push him down a hill. But he had some kids. You have to be a certain age to do that. And his boys were like, dad, I want to be in the Soapbox Derby. And he said, well, son, you're too young. So he tried to think of something that he could do together with his boys and came up with the Pinewood Derby,

which is a pretty cool idea. Yeah. You know. Yeah. It's basically making a Soapbox Derby racer too small for a human to fit and be injured in. That is correct. Yeah. Much safer, I would imagine. So apparently like at this first one, they pulled out all the stops immediately. They came up with regulation wood blocks, wheels and axles that everybody had to use the same things, right? Yeah. I think the axles are just nails. Yeah. But they had wooden struts that the nails went into. And they came up with a pretty cool track at like a 32 or 40 something foot track. The first one was 31. Okay. And then, but they also used like old doorbells to create like a timekeeper. Oh, yeah. So whichever car passed the thing first would set off a light

in that lane. Yeah. Above that lane. It's got a little more advanced since then. Yes. But I mean, that's, that's, that's pretty advanced for the first one. Yeah. Not bad for the early 1950s. No. And so the first, this first one on May 15th, 1953 in Manhattan Beach, apparently it was just such a total hit that the guy who invented it, Don Murphy, was like, this is some, this is a thing. Yeah. How can I make money on it? I apparently he didn't. Now he didn't, but boy, a lot of people have since then, which we'll get to as well. Yeah. A lot of entrepreneurial fathers were like, hey, I can make some dough on this by designing these things. Yeah. Yeah. Good for them. All right. You know, so Don Murphy with the other route. And so I don't

want to share this with the world. This is my creation. And I'm going to get in touch with the Boy Scouts of America and say, Hey guys, I've got this thing. And the Boy Scouts said, that's great. We're sending out Boys Life magazine to cover this. Yeah, big deal. It's going to be hot off the presses. Remember that in airplane, where that little, the kids reading, no, the nun is reading Boys Life magazine. Oh yeah. And the little boys reading Nunn's Life magazine next to it. That's pretty funny. So Boys Life magazine is like the official magazine of Boy Scouts, right? That's right. And they came out and covered it. And I think 1954, the next year, but it was just kind of like a little blurb, a little write up, a one pager. It didn't really get the extent of

this across. Yeah. And by 1955, they had over 300 people racing for the championships in L.A.'s Griffith Park. And now I think since its inception, like over 50 million kids have done this. Yeah. And a 90 million, including parents, which is a little lazy to me. I think they were just like, well, I just had two parents per kid. Subject a few. Let's make it 90 million. Yeah. But yeah, it's become a huge hit and a tradition that lives on today. And kind of the same way. I mean, they've gotten way more involved in making these things as fast as possible. But the general gist of it and the rules are about the same. Yeah. Let's talk about the rules right after this break, huh? Sure. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor,

stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it. And now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL instant messenger and the dial up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friends beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia

starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's Cheekies from Cheekies and Chill podcast. And I want to tell you about a really exciting episode. We're going to be talking to Nancy Rodriguez from Netflix's Love is Blind season three. Looking back at your experience, were there any red flags that you think you missed? What I saw as a weakness of his I wanted to embrace. The way I thought of it was whatever love I have from you is extra for me. Like I already love myself enough. Do I need you to

validate me as a partner? Yes. Is it required for me to feel good about myself? No. Listen to Cheekies and Chill on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. So Chuck, to make these things fair, all Pinewood Derby cars start off the exact same. A little wood block, some regulation wheels and axles, right? That's it. And then it's up to you, the scout, to make it your own. And this article, funny enough, says that aerodynamics don't really play a role. That is not the case at all. No, they play, if you want to speak scientifically, an 11% reduction in speed. Just using the wood block? Yeah, if you make it more aerodynamic. So it matters, but it doesn't matter quite as much as you think it might. Right. But it does

have some effect. Absolutely, 11%. And so there are some guidelines to making a soapbox derby racer. Pinewood. Man, it's going to get me all episode. That's okay. Just remember soapbox equals death of child. Right. Pinewood equals fun for child. Great. Okay. I think I got it now. That's right. No car can weigh more than five ounces. None. And we'll get to the tricks of the trade later, but you want your car to weigh that five ounces. Yes. You don't want it to weigh four. No. Because heavier cars can be faster. That's right, because of gravity and mass. Well, sort of. I mean, technically, a heavier car, it's all about weight distribution. It is, but a heavier car is going to be subject to the force of gravity more than a lighter car,

because it has more mass for gravity to exert an effect on. Cars cannot be longer than seven inches. I think initially they were a little bit longer than that, but they settled on seven, which is good. They cannot be more than two and three quarters of an inch wide. And the clearance of the car on the track must be no more than three-eighths of an inch. And the clearance is very important because Pinewood Derby cars are called rail cars. Yeah. They ride along a central rail where the car and the wheels straddle a rail that goes underneath it. Right. It's not just in a lane to bump back and forth. Yes. Very good point. Thank you. And the last rule, of course, we mentioned it's all gravity-fed. You can't have any starting device or any

CO2 cartridge or motor or anything. It's just wheels. Yes. Gotting it down the track. If the jet flames shoot out of the back of your Pinewood Derby car, it's going to get disqualified. That's right. Although you'll get some wows out of the crowd for sure. Well, you'll also get some wows if you'd carve a cool Coke bottle or make a NASCAR or a... General Lee's a big one. Oh, I'm sure. But what I basically found in researching this is you can't have both. You can either have a really cool looking car or a really fast car. Right. Because the faster ones are not very, like, great looking. No. And a lot of people just go with a wedge. Yeah. Because a wedge is aerodynamic. It's a lot more aerodynamic than the block. It's easy to make. And apparently,

they're very fast, usually. That's right. They are. I saw one, if you type in cool Pinewood Derby cars on a Google image search, comes up with some cool Pinewood Derby cars. Yeah. But one of them is this kid holding his car. It's like this weird reddish brown. And it has spiders painted on it. Oh, cool. He named it Derby Death. It's my favorite Pinewood Derby car. That's your favorite kid. Yeah. Yeah. Cool kid. Mine would have just been me holding up my sort of oddly shaped thing that says not as good as your brother's. You start off with either like a balsa wood or what's the other kind of wood they suggested? Pine. Pine. This is a little softer. Yeah. Easier to carve. What's a Pinewood Derby car? Oh, well, yeah, that's true. But balsa is, I think, lighter. So...

It is. But again, you don't necessarily want lighter. Well, that's a good point. Thank you. But again, you want the weight distribution correct. Right. So you may want the body lighter so you can control that weight more. Yes. That's just a little tip. No, that is a good point right there. You want to control where the weight goes. That's right. So yeah, maybe balsa is the way to go. Well, they do have the kits you can buy that are fully stocked with everything you need. Or you can go a la carte because there are a lot of companies out there now that make all manner of add-ons and special wheels and axles and all kinds of things to make your car faster. Yeah. And if you are building a Pinewood Derby racer right now

and you're like, yeah, that sounds pretty great. I got some money to spend on this thing, you will want to check your local council's rules. Yeah. Because some of them are like, nope, you can use nothing but what comes in the official Pinewood Derby kit. Right. And other places are like, sold by us. Right. Yeah, exactly. And now go sell some candy after the Pinewood Derby is over. That's right. Then other places are like, yeah, go nuts. Most places agree like you can't send the kit off to a third party and have the third party make your Pinewood Derby racer for you and send it back. Oh yeah, no way. Other places say that you can't. Well, no, that's the whole point. It's supposed to be like a parent kid activity of learning about physics,

engineering, building, woodworking. Yeah. Probably losing. Sportsmanship. Yes, not throwing a punch when you lose. Stuff like that. And if you just basically buy a racer, I mean, what kind of like villainous rich kid are you? If that's what you're doing at the Pinewood Derby, you know? Yeah, you're what's his face from Peewee's Big Adventure. Oh man, what is his name? Do you know it? I'm completely blanking. I can picture him chewing that black gum. Yes. I can picture him in that big bathtub swimming pool in his home. Well, we'll figure it out. It'll come to one of us. Yeah. I don't feel the need to email because this will be weeks later. Yeah, we got it. We got it covered. And or you could be the antagonist in the movie Down in

Derby. Man. Yeah. Did you go to IMDb on that one? Very briefly. Did you see the movie poster? Yeah. That is everything you need to know about that movie is captured in the poster. Yeah, there's a film about a Pinewood Derby, two parents who of course, two fathers who are lifelong rivals. Yeah. That's all you need to say. Well, starring the boss from Ally McBeal. Yeah, Greg Gurman. Yeah. I'm a big Gurman fan, but are you? Well, sure. I think it's good. He was great in that show. I never saw that show. Oh, it's a good show. Wasn't he on the West Wing too? No, you're thinking of Bradley. Oh, I like that guy. Yeah, great incentive of a woman. Bradley Cooper. No, not him. No, I know what you mean. Bradley Whitford. Yes. Yeah. His best role,

though, seriously was in Billy Madison. I never saw that either. What? I know, right? Yeah, you got to see that one. For some reason. For some reason, Gilmore are classic films. I've seen some of Happy Gilmore. For some reason, those Adam Sandler in the Chris Barley movies I never really saw. What? I didn't see Black Sheep. What? Well, Black Sheep, it's fine, but you never saw Tommy Boy? Parts of it. I know. I don't know what was going on. When were those like when I was in college? Or just right after, but yeah, maybe. Yeah, there was like a dark period. You could see being a little too sophisticated for those, you know? No, not at all. They really are great movies, though. If you don't like them, you're just being a snob. They're just funny movies

that anybody can enjoy on just a basic level. I can assure you I didn't avoid them out of snobbery. Yeah. But I think there was just like a weird period where I didn't see many movies. You were just watching nothing but Fellini? No. I don't know. What were you doing instead? I got to just watching TV. I got to find out what year they came out. I would say probably between 94 and 97. Yeah, that was college and I don't know. Okay. We'll just leave it at that. I just didn't see them. Gotcha. All right. Where are we? We are at the race. I got sidetracked with that bad movie. Oh, I've got one. If you do, if your council does allow outside helper, if you can buy other parts. Sure. Because a lot of times it's like, no, you have to use these.

Yeah. Yeah. But some of these companies have figured out ways around it. Like your Pinewood Derby car is going to be inspected conceivably, especially if it's really fast and it's a winning car. They're going to really look at it to make sure you're not cheating. Right. One of the ways that you can make your car faster is with wheels, lighter wheels. Yeah. So less mass equals less friction, I believe. And so they spin faster and it moves faster, right? Yeah. They call them onion skin wheels. Right. Now, like you usually can't use those. Right. But some of these companies offer ones that outwardly look the exact same. It has all the markings and everything, but they've removed a lot of the mass. So they bought like official Boy Scout Pinewood Derby wheels and

have altered them and then sell them for like 35 bucks for a set. Wow. 35 bucks to cheat at Pinewood Derby. Basically. Yeah. Man. Yeah. That's so disheartening. It is a little disheartening also because even if it is legal or allowed, it's like I guarantee not all the kids' parents are going to be willing to spend 35 bucks on like aftermarket wheels that have had some of the mass removed to make the car go faster. Yeah. Or the kid who can't afford that kind of stuff anyway. It's not on a level playing field, you know? That's what I mean. That just stinks. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, beyond the parents saying they shouldn't pay for that. Right. You know what I mean? Let's talk about the track. The starting gate is generally about four feet high because,

and I thought this is adorable, because that's about it. That's a good height for a little Cub Scout. Like it made sense. They didn't want to make it so high that, you know, they couldn't do it. Although usually the kid is not actually placing the car. It's an official that's doing that. Yeah. The kid's hands are usually too sticky. Yeah. Like lollipop gunk all over them. And that's another reason why you should mark the front of your car and the back of your car because if you don't do like the best job at the aerodynamics, you might not be able to tell the difference between the front and the back. Right. And it might not be you placing it. So just put a little like F and a B on the underside to make sure they know what they're doing. It's

one way to do it. Yeah. It'll either be you placing the car, the official placing the car, or the grand marshal of the race, Greg Gurman, placing the car as part of his duties. So it's four feet high, about 32 to 45 feet long. The number of lanes are from two to six. Although they talk about the semi legendary 12 lane model, which was probably pretty boss. Sure. I say like speed this thing up. Get as many lanes going as you can. I know that you could like have 10,000 scouts racing with a 12 way and an hour. Yeah. You know, Chuck, this track thing is kind of like, say you have a 12 lane track, yeah, depending on the type of race you run, it could actually make the whole thing go a lot longer. So a lot of people say these tracks, some of them

are great. Like there are, there's companies that do make tracks, like one's called micro wizard, I think. And this get this guy came up with this company to build like really awesome aluminum tracks with timers that can, that are sensitive to I think two 10,000ths of a second. Yeah. And so this guy's making these really great tracks, but not all tracks are created like that. I think like that whole setup is like two grand. Yeah. So if you have maybe an older wooden track or something like that, some critics of those kind of tracks say, well, then everybody needs to run a race in each one of those slots. And then you take the combined times to come up with an average because some slots are going to be better than others. That makes sense. So if you had like a

a 12 lane track, oh yeah, you would have a very long day ahead of you. So that would not speed things up. It would do the opposite of speeding things up. All right. So I'd smashed 10 of those lanes. Like you said, most of the really nice tracks are aluminum now, although they can still be wood. Sometimes the wood is surfaced and like masonite or some like really slick surface to make it as fast as possible because that's what it's all about. So we're going to get down to business, what everyone's been waiting for and tell you guys how to make your regulation Pinewood Derby car as fast as possible right after this. On the podcast, Hey Dude the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude,

bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co stars, friends and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL instant messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the

cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's Chikis from Chikis and Chill Podcast and I want to tell you about a really exciting episode. We're going to be talking to Nancy Rodriguez from Netflix's Love is Blind Season 3. Looking back at your experience, were there any red flags that you think you missed? What I saw as a weakness of his, I wanted to embrace. The way I thought of it was whatever love I have from you is extra for me. Like I already love myself enough. Do I need you to validate me as a partner? Yes. Is it required for me to feel good about

myself? No. Listen to Chikis and Chill on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. So Chuck, we happen to go on to Boys Life Magazine today a couple of times. That's right. And I love you every day. It's on our homepage. And we've looked at ways to make your Pinewood Derby car faster. One of the articles you found was from a Mars Curiosity rover engineer who, he and his son are into scouting and they made a Pinewood Derby car and they decided to apply the scientific method to figuring out ways to make it faster. That's pretty cool. And this dude came up with these pointers basically. What is his name? His name is Mark Rober. He's a NASA engineer. Nice. Yeah. And he and his son are to be thanked for these pointers. All right. Well,

speaking of point, the first thing you want to do is avoid a pointed nose on your car. Good point. You want it to be flat across the front because sometimes it'll affect how it gets, how it reads across the finish line, which you don't want. I saw a Hammerhead Shark Pinewood Derby. It was boss. Yeah. That's a pretty good example of what you want up front. Right. That flat nose. And the other thing too is it may affect the way it rests on that pin at the start of the race. Yeah, because if it's cocked off to one side or the other, no good. That car is going to hit that middle rail and it's going to be Friction City and you're going to go home crying in your pillow. That's right. You want the weight, like we mentioned, at the rear of the car about within

an inch of that rear axle and proper weight distribution accounts for about 36%. I thought you said, oh no, that was aerodynamics. Yeah. I was going to totally nail you on that one. The weight, 36%, that's huge. And what that means is you've got more potential energy because the center of mass is higher up on the track. Right. So, you know, like with our Water Slides episode, the higher up you go in the stairs, the more potential energy you have. So even that extra, like half an inch of weight distribution toward the back, higher up, the more acceleration you're going to have on your car. Yeah, because if you think about the track, like once it flattens out at the bottom, if the weight is on the front of your car and you've got two cars side by side

and the weight's on the front, that one's already done. Right. And the one with the weight at the rear, it's still pushing it. Yes. And that extra couple of inches is going to make a big diff. Good point. And you might say, well then, I want to put my weight all the way on the rear of the car. No, no, no, no. No, you don't want to because that means that the front might pop a wheelie the whole way down. Again, it'll look cool. Yeah. It'll be a crowd pleaser, but you're probably not going to win that way. I would totally be a crowd pleaser because I know I couldn't win. Right. The speed portion. Yeah. So I would just make one that like pops wheelies and does cool things. Maybe that's why I was never a Cub Scout. I was thinking outside the box, you know.

Maximum weight, like we said, you want it to be that five ounces, very big. Oh, they recommend baking the wood block in the oven. Good first start. To get all the excess moisture out of that. Yup. Bake at 250 for a couple of hours, two hours, and it should make your block of wood that much lighter because again, you want weight, you want the full five ounces, but you want to control. You want to control where you put that weight, not mother nature, not God or earth or anything like that. You want to control where that weight goes. Yeah. And get, you know, you want your parents help with all this. Don't go throwing wood in the oven and cranking it up because it can catch on fire. You don't want that either. Well, yeah. 250. All right. Here's one. Oh, man.

I know you're going to talk about the three-wheeler. Oh, no, that wasn't it. You need to check again with your rules, but apparently in some leagues, they allow you, and this is a very common thing now if they allow it, to have one wheel not on the track at all, like the front left or the front right. Why would you want to do that? Well, because less friction. So they say about 160 of an inch higher. So it never actually touches the track and that'll give you a 9% speed increase. Right. You only have three wheels touching the track at once ever. Yeah. Pretty smart, but also probably cheating if they don't allow it. Yeah. You want to check your rules again, because I mean, that would suck to go to the trouble of measuring that out and

being like, I'm going to win and being disqualified because you didn't read the rules. Hope Stash, what were you excited about me saying? So a little more basic than that, but also very thrilling is these things ride rails. You don't want your wheels to touch the rails. You don't want your car to touch the rails. Wow. So you want as true and straight and alignment as possible. So it goes straight down with as little friction as possible. Right? That's the old thinking. Okay. Well, let me finish my old thinking. Okay. So that means you want the straightest axles possible. Yeah. And this is a really cool way to figure out if you have straight axles or not. There's going to be several axles that come in a package in your kit,

and you want to figure out which ones are the straightest. You can't really tell this by looking at them. So what you do is you get an electric drill, right? And ideally you put it in a vise grip so it doesn't move at all. And you take your axles and you put them in the drill like a drill bit and you turn the drill on. And if the axle wobbles, it's not straight. The axles that wobble the least as they're spinning around in the drill are the straightest ones. And those are the two that you want to use or the four that you want to use. It would be two. Those are the two that you want to use. Yeah. And not only that, but once you find your two, you want to polish them. Like don't just throw it in there because there's little burrs and nicks and things

that are going to slow your car down. So they say, again, with your parents, either put it in that drill or a drill press is even better. And just spin the nail and get a sandpaper and sand those things down and keep going with that grit until you get to like 2,000 grit. And you've polished that axle to like where it's almost like a mirror. Right. So some parents are going to come home and they're like seven year old kids going to have a block of wood in the oven on 250, a drill going with a belt sander. And they're going to say, Josh and Chuck told me too. No, no, no. Always get your parents help with this stuff. Again, that's the whole point anyway. Activities together. So I mentioned that was the old thinking. This blew my mind. The idea of Ben

axles and rail riding. Okay. So that's the latest and greatest. With the axles, they recommend now and they make these devices, these little jigs that will do it for you to bend where the wheel actually connects about 2.5% of a bend. So it actually reduces friction and makes alignment easier. This makes sense to me. So what you've got then is your front tires angled inward and your back tires angled out. And that makes what you want. Like if you put it on just a flat surface and rolled it, you want it over the course of like 10 feet to steer about an inch to the left or right because rail riding is the new fastest way to race your car. So I don't get that. Well, what they said was, this is the video I watched, this house explained to me at least,

is once you get to the bottom and level out, no track is perfect. And even if you have your car perfectly aligned, it's going to start wobbling on the track and slow you down. So the idea is, if you have that one front wheel angled in at the right way and your back wheels angled the right way, you'll actually touch the rail and use the rail as a guide to keep you as straight as possible. Weird. So the friction that is lost is overcome by how straight it is and the lack of wobble. And they call it rail riding. And that's like the newest thing to do, which goes counter to anything you would think in straight car racing, which is to make everything perfectly straight so it doesn't move. Sort of blew my mind. It's a little mind blowing, man. I'm with you.

Graphite is something that you want to add. It's a dry lubricant and that'll add about 7% to your speed. Pretty much everybody allows that. The graphite. Yeah. Yeah. And everything I saw says just to get whatever kind of graphite. The cheap stuff is just as good as the expensive. Yeah. It's all a big marketing scam apparently because they said powder graphite. Graphite is graphite. Exactly. So they'll put like, you know, super speed graphite and charge you more. It's not like the cheap stuff has like glue or T-shells mixed in with it, you know. No. This is graphite. So those wheels you talked about, lighter weight wheels will account for about a 16% increase in speed if it's allowed in your league. Yep. You want your

wheelbase to be as far apart as possible from what I understand? Yeah, totally. Like you don't want the wheels up in the center of the car. They'd be weird looking anyway. It would be plus apparently it also takes more energy to steer it off of the rail, but I guess that doesn't apply anymore if you're rail racing, rail riding. Yeah, rail riding. What else? I got nothing else, man. You got nothing else? I got nothing else. I only have one more little thing. And this is about the, you know, what obviously is going to happen in any competition in the United States. Parents are going to get involved and they're going to become big jerks. It was the whole basis for that movie, I think. And I went to the Boy Scouts site. I guess it

was a boys life magazine site. And there's a big problem now with like who made your Pinewood Derby car. And they said a big red flag is when mom or dad comes in holding the car and the kid isn't even holding it. Yeah. And they'll always say, give it to your kid and we'll deal with him. Or I guess, you know, Girl Scouts are doing it now or her. Right. And let's get to the bottom of this and who actually built this thing. And while I do point out that they take them into the other room and see if they can break them. Right. Yeah. They have to detail like every single thing they did. Exactly. We're lying, Jimmy. They, uh, to try to get around this, because they do acknowledge that, you know, these are like seven and eight year olds and you all, you can't use a band saw

if you're seven or eight. I would guess it's pretty obvious when a parent has had the lead on all this. Yeah. Rather than taking, you know, a supporting role. Yeah. I think you're supposed to. So that they just had different parents chime in on what they do and what they've done and what works in their leagues. And, um, they said a lot of times that they'll, um, the kid will design the car and then like mom or dad will cut the wood and then the kid will like assemble the wheels and stuff like that. Um, so, you know, the kid plays a part in it, but the adult is doing like the dangerous stuff. Um, some, uh, some, some places they have dad's divisions. So like the dad can just build his own car and race another dad. Well, yeah, there's like whole racing leagues that are

adult leagues. Technically not Pinewood Derby because Pinewood Derby is like Boy Scouts only. Right. Um, or Scouts only, but there's like non Boy Scout affiliated adult racing leagues of this stuff. Yeah. Gravity race. Apparently at the Pinewood Derby though, they'll also have dad races. Gotcha. I see. Just so, you know, hey, you're, you haven't matured to the point where you can just participate as a father. Yeah. So you can race your other dads if you really need to. Yeah. That's pretty great. Uh, some people have, uh, car building days where they all get together as a big group and do it, which is kind of fun. And that ensures that it's more level playing field. And then they, uh, this one, this is my favorite one. Uh, where is this? I don't think

it said where this was. This one Boy Scout troop gives out awards and categories, uh, like you had originally craftsmanship. Yeah. Finish. I think it's common. And then they'll give an award car most likely made by a parent. Awesome. And so it's sort of a shame award. Public shaming. Sure. Yeah. Humiliation. Yeah. But I think that would humiliate the kid too. What if they gave you like a, a patch too? You just earned your patch in public humiliation. Right. This has got a red face scout on it. Yeah. I don't know. That seems like it would totally embarrass the kid. Yeah. It's like rubbing your face in your poop. That's exactly what it's like. What else you got? I got nothing else. I got one more thing. So apparently,

as far as scale goes, some of these, um, Pinewood Derby cars get up to 20 miles an hour. And if you scaled it up to a normal sized car, that would be in the area of 200 miles an hour. What? Yeah. Oh, wow. I think so. Pretty neat. Pound for pound. They go pretty quick. So, uh, I guess if you're interested in the Pinewood Derby, go join the Cub Scouts or Boy Scouts or, uh, look for a, just a recreational league in your town. Right. Kind of made me want to build one. Oh, check. There is nothing stopping you. Yeah. Well, actually me, because after about five minutes, I was like, yeah, I got it. It's fun to read about though. Well, if you want to read more about Pinewood Derby's, you can type those words into the search bar

howstuffworks.com. You can also go on to stuffyshnow.com and find the podcast page for this episode. And it will bring up all sorts of cool links. Uh, and I said, uh, search bar in there somewhere, which means it's time for a listener mail. Uh, I'm going to call this, um, Alan Alda experience. That's the second Alan Alda appearance in this episode. That's right. You can't have enough Alan Alda references. You know, the onion went on a little tear where, like, Alan Alda made an appearance in every single one of their slides. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, nice. Uh, dear Charles Joshua and Jerome, I want to share a quick story about the time I met Alan Alda. Uh, I'd wanted to meet him for most of my life like Chuck. It was a goal. Uh,

while other kids were watching Full House, I was watching Mash and Dragnet. Uh, so it was like me too. I never watched Full House, which is coming back by the way. Did you hear that? No, with the original cast, or they're remaking it? No, I think, uh, I think it's the original cast. Yeah, it's the original cast. Wow. But it may concentrate on the kid's version of their house or something. I don't know. Who cares, right? I work as a producer for a radio morning show in Pittsburgh. Uh, my station sponsored a series of talks in which Mr. Alda was a part of and I got a chance to meet him at a dinner and, um, shake his hand and hand a copy of the book to him, of his book to sign. And when I went to do this, a quote, gentlemen, end quote,

who I can best describe as a 45 year old child who looks like he comes from old money, cut in front of me. I know what that guy's pinewood derby car would be like. Yeah. He said he, uh, think Dudley Moore and Arthur, but without the charm. Uh, he looked like he had a scotch in his hand. He slurred the question, was hot lips hula hand really hot? I would have punched this guy. Alan Alda handled the situation gracefully because he's Alan Alda. And after a few more embarrassing questions, the guy left and I got to introduce myself properly. And a little bit later, I went out to him again to get a formal picture and he remembered my name. I was so excited. I didn't get to, um, I didn't write to brag or make you jealous Chuck, but I've been trying to find a reason to

write you guys for six years. The talk he gave was very compelling. He talked about living life to the fullest and about his near death experience on a mountaintop in Chile and how it changed his life. And then he recommends Alan Alda's memoir, which I've also heard is great. So you can just look that up. I heard it's really good book. I'm going to read it. Yeah. Just type a few random words into the search bar and it should bring that up. I think Alan Alda memoir should do it. Sure. Um, so that's how I met him. And next on my life goal list is to meet Josh and Chuck. So that is from Andy Limburg, who's a radio producer like Jerry. Oh yeah. Hey, there you go. And Pittsburgh PA. They run into each other at the convention every once in a while. Sure.

How do you stay awake when you guys are doing this stuff? I don't know. How do you stay awake? Hardly hard. Hard. You got anything else? Nope. Sick of radio producers making fun of us. If you want to get in touch with Chuck, me or Jerry or the three of us or any combination there of, you can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web stuff you should know.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite

boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey guys, it's Cheekies from Cheekies and Chill podcast. And I want to tell you about a really exciting episode. We're going to be talking to Nancy Rodriguez from Netflix's Love is Blind season three. Looking back at your experience, were there any red flags that you think you missed? What I saw as a weakness of his,

I wanted to embrace. The way I thought of it was whatever love I have from you is extra for me. Like I already love myself enough. Do I need you to validate me as a partner? Yes. Is it required for me to feel good about myself? No. Listen to Cheekies and Chill on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.