I help the neighborhood kids build their cars every year and every year I wish I had a test track. The track will be easy to build but I don't want to mess with a timer. I think I can build a timer, I just don't want to. I would probably make it by hacking the on/off button on a cheap stopwatch. The alternative would be something more expensive than I want to mess with. Anyway, it's just a test track and a timer is just one more thing to store and keep working.

It occurs to me that if I make the slope on my track so that it runs slow, I can substitute how far the car goes for how fast it goes. I simply make the starting slope low enough so that the car doesn't build up enough speed to reach the end of the 32' track I will build. A kid can run the car, note the distance and make adjustments. Run it again and see if it goes further. I will build a two lane track so kids can run one car against another. I figure, I need at least 12" of width so why not make it two lanes?

Additionally, running the car slower means that we would have a better chance to observe the cars behavior. Is it going left or right? That sort of thing.

I've read that aerodynamics really aren't much of a factor in Pinwood Derby cars so I don't see that making the track slow would be a bad thing.

Comments?