LINKS

We are constantly compiling additional links to web sites that will be helpful and enhance your derby experience. We hope you find the best solution for a successful derby.

Miscellaneous Sites for helpful information

Message Boards and Informational Sites

ABC Pinewood Derby® - Your “How to” guide to the Pinewood Derby® Car. Everything you need to design, build, win and even manage a Pinewood Derby® race. This site has a very good race management procedure. Our pack prefers to hold a registration night before the race event night. This will allow for more time to 'work' on the cars if the weight is a problem. We have a working table with a scale or 2 and another table with the OFFICIAL scale. Once the cars are registered, we take a digital picture of them for our web site and store them in Tupperware boxes until race night. You can see our race plan on the race procedures page.

Derby Talk - Very active and informational forum for many types of derby races. Derby Talk is a forum for Pinewood Derby®, Awana Grand Prix, Kub Kar Rally, Shape N Race Derby, Space Derby®, Raingutter Regatta® and other similar races where a child and an adult work together to create a race vehicle and a lot of fun and memories.

Pinewood Performance boards - A WIRL and Pinewood Derby® forum for all types of derby racing. Features Woodcar International Racing League (WIRL) racing events, rules and discussions.

WIRL - Woodcar Independent Racing League. Create a race vehicle for any of four classes; Rookie Stock, Pure Stock, Pro Stock or Modified. Send it in to one of their monthly proxy series with the registration form and very reasonable fee. Your car will be registered and listed on the WIRL website. It is for any age and it is a lot of fun. There are no membership fees required to join WIRL.

Race Management Software

GrandPrix race manager software - This is a very nice package for tabular style races such as Lane Rotation, Stearns, Perfect-N Series and Round Robin. This package includes everything you need to run a smooth race. Awards, certificates and sound effects create a fun atmosphere. This package includes special features of our timer including the masking of unused lanes and masking of a "Bye" lane. Follow this link to "What's New" in the GrandPrix Race Manager.

DerbyMaster software package - The SmartLine Timer can be set up to work with the simple DTX000 communication protocol so that you may use the DerbyMaster. Please contact us if you need this option.

Tracks

BestTrack - Original All Aluminum Track The Ultimate Track for Pinewood Racing!

BestTrack Pinewood Derby® Tracks
131 Oakridge Drive
Forest City, Iowa 50436

BestTrack is the manufacturer of the original and unique all aluminum track. You can expand one lane at a time as your budget allows. It's strong, lightweight, and the joints are as smooth as glass due to their proprietary extrusion design with (4) 3/16" diameter registration pins between sections. They have many accessories to enhance the event. They produce the only aluminum Space Derby® track on the market.

THE "CHALLENGER"
Pinewood Derby® TRACK SYSTEM

Beta Crafts, Incorporated
2682 Route 130
Cranbury, NJ 08512
609-655-1940
609-655-0106 (Fax)

Beta Crafts, Incorporated provides precision extruded aluminum surface systems and track engineering design drawings for Pinewood Derby® tracks. They have been in the "Pinewood Derby®" business since 1957.
We purchased our track for Pack 1080 from Beta Crafts and built the frame on our own about 10 years ago. We have been very happy with our track.

Miscellaneous Sites

Pinewood Derby® Racers…How to Win a Pinewood Car Derby
http://win-edge.com/PinewoodDerby.shtml

How to Win a Pinewood Car Derby teaches you the specifics of building a pinewood car for speed. You can make your car the fastest it can be with secrets that will give you a winning edge. This manual is useful for the Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, Awana Grand Prix, Royal Rangers, Shape ‘n Race, Kub Kar Rally and other groups.

There are two free terminal programs available for communication with the SmartLine timer listed below. Follow the link to download one.

Terminal - a terminal emulation program for RS-232(serial) communication

Terminal program for basic communication with SmartLine Finish Line Timer. Terminal is a free software terminal emulator (communication program) for Windows. It can be used for communication with different devices such as modems, routers, serial port connection, and so on. You can use this program to communicate with the SmartLine Timer at the command level. The Command Manual will give you all the details such as the baud rate, data bits, parity and stop bits you need to hook up and communicate. It also gives you a list of the commands and the expected responses. This is a very useful tool.

Tera Term Pro

This terminal program is for basic communication with SmartLine Finish Line Timer. Tera Term (Pro) is a free software terminal emulator (communication program) for MS-Windows. It supports VT100 emulation, telnet connection, serial port connection, and so on. You can use this program to communicate with the SmartLine Timer at the command level. The Command Manual will give you all the details you need to hook up and communicate.