Track lanes

I never thought of that, it's certainly plausible. I have a 3 lane track, and my fastest lane is also the outside lane on the left, as viewed from the back of the track.

Now that you mention it, that left lane at MA was like .005-.006 faster than the others if I remember correctly. I'm wondering if it's a small alignment issue on some tracks. If the start gate or finishing senors aren't exactly 90* to the track, it would effect the outer lanes more than any inner lanes. A 2 lane track wouldn't be as effected by this as much as a 4 lane track, or a monster 8 lane track.

I feel like a midget in the Land of Legends here but I have some thoughts that may be worthy of consideration. First THANKS to everyone's acceptance of me and your willingness to help a rookie. I've gotten tips and help I never thought available but it didn't take me long to discover all I had to do is ask questions. I'm overwhelmed. For reasons only a couple of you know this hobby/addiction has come at a perfect time in life where I'm facing issues caused by exposure in the workplace. It keep my mind alive and sharp.

My opinion, for what it's worth, there could be 1 particular cause and effect or possibly multiples. These little 5 oz prima donnas are so finicky any thing could be the cause. It could be the manufacturing process itself. The extrusion process has to cause stress on the drawing qualities of different runs of raw stock. Each piece of stock may have slight variations. The dies used may be slightly off from each due to useage. As already stated it could be a section alignment issue. A non visible dip or defect in a lane. Would be interesting to know if Joel leaves his track as is as far as set up is concerned between each race other than cleaning. If he does take it down and do a re-setup and see if it changes.

The room itself may be the cause. An air vent can cause the air to maneuver itself differently within the room. A door being opened or closed can change the air currents within the room. With minuscule fractions of seconds of time involved it could be ANY little minute detail or multiples. Would be interesting to have what we refer to in drag racing as 60' times from the tree. The red lane may not be the fastest 60. That would tell you if it's in the flat and where to start looking. I have to be careful to keep my blocks/planks bagged down here in The Sipp because a plank that fit my jig perfectly today may not even fit at all all a month from now. I assume it's water absorption from triple digit humidity.
But take this and 5 bucks you can get a regular coffee at Starbucks. DIFD

I didn't look at the bearing classes, but it looks like the current track records in BASX, SS, SP, and MA, are all in the red lane. In Box Stock it's the blue lane, but with no car running next to it.

On average, how much faster would you fellows say the red lane is over the two center lanes ?

.001-.002
.002-.003
.003-.004
.004+