Hot Wheels Gun Testing
My $15 (shipped) HW radar gun has been surprisingly accurate. My test car # 7 Teegray was clocked at between 377 and 435 scale MPH on the backstretch in five runs. On the midway straight all runs were above 400 with one at 525. The home stretch speeds are around 300. This method of qualifying cars for my races beats having to set up the 6 foot drag strip and qualifying the cars according to the distance traveled across my sketchy concrete floor.
Discussion
No, because the straightaway speed depends on how good a run the car gets out of the turn. If it stays to the outside at the end of the straight it maintains pretty good speed by not hitting the rail harshly. Sometimes it rides the rail with two wheels and hardly loses any speed. With open lanes even solo runs will give varying results. I just need it for a less cumbersome way to qualify 20-30 cars for the first round. Subsequent rounds are determined by points ranking.
I read the instructions online and it says to hold it over the track pointed down at a 25-45 degree angle for best results. It will display the highest speed reached in the viewing field. If you wanted just the speed at a certain part of the track, My guess is mount it in a rack off to the side at a 45 degree angle and you should get fairly accurate results.
I tried holding the gun off to the side at an angle of 45 degrees or so and get wildly different results (slower). Holding the gun just above the track and parallel (coming or going) gives the highest readings.
Is it consistent in clocking speeds of the same car over and over?