With an eye toward the coming Race on June 19, let’s take a look at how the race is governed.
Prior to race day the officials of the DuBois Area Soap Box Derby supervise all race car drivers as they draw their own initial heat and lane assignments.
On race day each racer will run the course through two heats, racing twice in each heat for a total of 4 times down the hill. This is the minimum that a racer can race because, of course, as they win they will be required to defeat another opponent to keep moving forward. They will alternate lanes and swap wheels with each race. They race once on an initial set of wheels then they race again after switching lanes and exchanging wheels.
The overall winner of each heat is found by recording the time difference between the cars crossing the finish line. The first racer over the line starts the timer; the second racer stops the same timer, and the time elapsed in between is recorded. On the next race (the second and final race of the heat) a second elapsed time is recorded in the same way. The two elapsed times are compared to find the overall winner of the heat, and who advances in the winner’s bracket and who drops to the loser’s bracket. All heats in both brackets are run in the same manner.
For example, Racer “A” wins the first run in Lane #1 on the car’s initial set of wheels. Racer “A” wins over Racer “B” by an elapsed time of 0.045 seconds. In their second race down the hill, each in the other lane on the other Racer’s set of wheels, Racer “B” wins by an elapsed time of 0.022 seconds. Racer “A” wins the heat by a favorable overall difference of 0.023 seconds. Racer “A” advances to the next heat in the Winner’s Bracket. Racer “B” drops to the Loser’s Bracket, where there is still the opportunity to win all of the remaining heats and return to the Winner’s Bracket to compete against the winner of the Championship Bracket for 1st Place in the overall event. |
