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Re: [Phys-l] Pinewood Derby Car Weight....



My young son was recently involved in a pinewood derby car race at our church. Since I have never been involved with pinewood derby cars in any way, I tried getting some information from the internet. Most of the information I found strongly suggested making the car as heavy as possible. One site specifically says "Don't even think about skipping weight addition if you want to be race competitive." and "The weight of your car overcoming friction is what will allow to you to win over other cars. You must make gravity work for you."

Now, I really don't want to argue about the fact that heavier cars go faster, since the people that wrote those statements probably have a ton of experience with this sort of thing and I think they would know. But I'm not sure I fully understand why the greater weight gives the cars an advantage. ...

Ralph,

One mental exercise that may help you appreciate the role of extra weight--and, more importantly, the physical mechanism that gives it an advantage--is to imagine the results for the opposite extreme--a very light car, say ten grams. Make it one gram, or a tenth of a gram, if necessary.

John Mallinckrodt

Professor of Physics, Cal Poly Pomona
<http://www.csupomona.edu/~ajm>

and

Lead Guitarist, Out-Laws of Physics
<http://outlawsofphysics.com>