Filler Cars

Why use filler cars?

The purpose of fillers is to make the races with fewer cars than the number of lanes more fair. Specifically, if you have a four-lane track and only 11 cars, then three of the cars would race in race #3 and 4 in race #'s 1 and 2. Those three cars would have a slight advantage, because the worst they could place would be third, while the other 8 cars have a chance to place 4th. The fillers, at most one per race, even this out.
See "Fairer Way" for an alternative which takes advantage of one of RaceVIEW's advanced preference settings.

Are they "real" cars?

In most packs, real cars are used as fillers. I would recommend using old cars, from parents, Boy Scouts returning to help with the Derby, or last year's cars as fillers. Pre-screen them during your initial track checkout (use RaceVIEW to run a sample Derby). I would recommend picking fillers with a range of speeds, with maybe a slight bias to the slow side.

Can they "win"? Do they advance to the Finals?

Fillers place wherever they finish, just like any other car. But note that the most a filler can do to any car, even if it comes in 1st place, is to add one point to the car's total. Fillers do not "advance" to the finals, nor do they show up on the Leader Board. Their race data is in
the data file, however, and can be useful to evaluate the track's fairness throughout the Derby.

Do I have to use filler cars?

You do not have to use filler cars. But, the current version of RaceVIEW does not allow you to disable this feature. That is, RaceVIEW will indicate that a filler car should be placed in a given lane. Should you not like the concept of fillers, simply leave their lane empty. Wave a hand under the finish line after all the cars have run through (you can make this part of the car retrieval ritual) to force the "filler" to finish last. Some finish lines may send this last place data automatically after several seconds. A purposefully SLOW car is another good way to trip the finish line, without affecting the race outcome.

In the demo mode, all cars, including fillers are given a simulated ranking. Their finish times are determined according to this ranking, along with some random variation thrown in to make things interesting.

How many filler cars should I use?

The number of filler cars to use must be at least one less than the number of lanes. The more filler cars you have, the less chance of racing a particular car against the same filler. When I helped with my son's pack, we used 3-6 cars.

Is there a fairer way to solve the "odd car" problem?

I think there is! Otherwise, why would I be asking the question!

One of the features I added to RaceVIEW, after its commercial introduction, is the ability to define custom point assignments for each place. Currently, you can change the points awarded for each finish place. The only rule is that higher place finishes must have equal or higher point values.

Given this capability, a new solution to the odd car problem has recently occurred to me. The odd car problem is really only a problem if you are restricted to points equaling the finish order. But, what if you set the LAST TWO places equal to the same value. Then, there is no longer a disadvantage to racing in a full race compared to an "odd car" race. This is true because ALL cars have an equal opportunity to score the same number of points in a round. Even if they race in a race with an empty lane!

So, I think a MUCH fairer solution to the odd car problem is to use the custom point assignment method described above!

In the next major release of RaceVIEW, if not in one of the minor releases, look to see an option for DISABLING the filler car "feature".