Talk:Soap Box Derby

These are my pictures used on this site. The girl with the white and blue car is my sister Daralyn Fitzgerald. I read the insert and it is correct. There are 2 forms of derby racing All American and NDR. NDR was formed in 1977 because the All American race was not fair. It has been going every since. Its usually the week after Akron and contestants compete in both organizations. The other pics are of the disqualified 1973 magnet car of James Gronen. For more references checkout www.zero-error.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.151.140.233 (talk) 19:18, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The history of this article exhibits suspicious behavior. In particular, the following paragraph seems to have been inserted and removed repeatedly:

  Keep in mind the World Championships held in Akron, Ohio are ran on a 
  "first to the finish line wins" meaning that it is a wheel race and is
  usually fixed so the local favorite wins the race. The National Derby
  Rallies is a rotating wheel swap race and is considered the "real race"
  which yeilds the fastest car and driver. NDR is considered the fair race.

Quite aside from the various problems with this paragraph (no sources cited for what would obviously be a potentially controversial statement; use of the second-person imperative; various grammatical issues; no attempt to explain the difference between a wheel race and a rotating wheel swap race; no link to any article on the NDR, nor any information about where that race is held), its insertion has been marked as a "minor edit". Please don't mark edits as "minor" when they introduce (or re-introduce) entire paragraphs; the "minor edit" checkbox is intended for stuff like adding or removing a punctuation mark or fixing a misspelled word.

I noticed this because I was considering commenting on this talk page regarding the various issues (cheifly in terms of the lack of cited sources) with that paragraph, but when I revisited the article to pick up a copy of the paragraph for quoting, it was gone. Then I looked at the history...

Apart from that, if the material in the above paragraph were to be re-added, it ought to be accompanied by a citation or reference, an explanation of the difference between the two types of races and what implications this has for fixing, and better NPOV wording (e.g., with a statement like "NDR is considered the fair race" there should be a qualifier indicating who considers it to be so).

Biased removal of content?

I just reverted the two anonymous, edit-summary-less content-deletions by 68.117.193.232, (who's only two edits are these removals of paragraphs from this article). The content-removal may have been justified, though I don't see how. The only vein of similarity between these specific paragraphs is that they are all critical of, or speak to the decline in popularity of, soap box derbies. I undid the removal as the edit served to push the article away from a NPOV. —Joel D. Reid (talk) 04:32, 1 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Scandals

I suggested to contributors to cite references to these instances, the last having been written in a rather non-encyclopedic style.

Bill Wrigley, 01:09, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

German Soap Box Derbies?

There are several links and a photo for the German counterpart but nothing actually in the page. Perhaps the person who added them would like to explain the significance? Ando228 (talk) 18:55, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ultimate Speed Challenge

begin comments

Message posted to taunt other team

http://cmubuggy.org/gallery/Ultimate-Speed/separated-at-birth-2010

“John Wargo, from California, put togother the 2006 Ultimate Speed Challenge winning team with driver Jenny Rodway.” (factually Zero Error racing)

“working with wheel expert Duane Delaney and driver” This text is not used in any official publication. It is a tuant sicne I am was the team’s captian My name is in the official litiatrre but ommited by intent on this site.

“Wheel expert Duane Delaney” another intetion insult (not comments above)

Selected car in picture is from the taunting team.

Official method of tracking fastest time (not the method in the chart used to mislead actual results). http://cmubuggy.org/gallery/Ultimate-Speed/lowest-ETs

Facts:

Only the one fastest heat per each championship event is recognized.

The car with the fastest time does not always win the race.

Fastest times can vary significantly year to year. This is due to changes in track surface, track temperature at the times of each heat, and the height and location of the starting ramp.

Track Surface and Temperature: In 1999

Track was just repaved and it was relatively cold and rainy during her fastest heat
1999 fastest heat was run earlier in the day then the hotter heats other teams ran later

in the day in 2010 and 2011 on a significantly smother surface (2011 track was hotter and smother than 2010)

Height and location of the AASBD starting ramp: Each year the AASBD recalibrates lanes to offset track changes that have occurred since the past race (if the track never changed this would not be necessary each year). When all three lanes are raised (even slightly) together during calibration, the times can significantly drop. While AASBD paradigm shift in derby speed have been rare, changes in ramp height have not (i.e. all significant changes in times year to year cannot be attributed to race car advancements). In fact, times that are significantly slower due to the reasons noted above (cars typically do not get slower).

Point 1: There have been years, even with the older much slower derby cars area, where times are lower than all current USC records. In fact, in 1940 the Akron local had cars in the 25 second range. In previous years with times faster than all modern USC teams, almost every car entered had a faster time than all AASBD current USC records. By ignoring other variables accounting for speed recent USC 2010 and 2011 team times are in the hundreds in order of success. Therefore, only this posting ignores USC times all run at later times of the day (all hotter) and on a much smother track surface (with the ramp possibly higher in the back).

Point 2: Significant ramp changes during that two year period. There should be no pleasure in unfairly diminishing a competitor’s success.

Point 3: Claiming success on the hottest USC day on the fastest USC track is like the rooster than believes that it brings the sun up each morning by crowing.

Point 4: CMU method of tracking fastest time’s methods is not used by the AASBD due to differences in events (but used here to mislead actual results).

Summary: Falsely and misleadingly diminished the success of all other past USC willing teams and the sport.