IDear Torque,

Has anyone measured the speed of a disc golf throw? How fast does a modern driver fly when thrown as hard as possible? Regards, Til

Hello Til,

This question has intrigued me for quite some time. Thanks for giving me a reason to ask around for an answer. According to my inside source at Innova, the fastest throwers can get discs travelling close to 80 miles per hour.

Dear Torque,

I have heard that the color of a disc will affect its stability. A light colored disc will take less time to cool off after it has been molded, giving it more of a dome shape with less stability, and a dark colored disc will take longer to cool which sinks the plastic on top giving it a flatter top with more stability. Is there any truth to this or just someone thinking way too hard? - Matt

Hello Matt,

It seems amazing that I had never heard this theory. And I've got lots of time to sit and think up reasons why my discs don't always fly right. Anyway, let's first talk about domey.

It is true that the dominess of the top plate will affect stability. In general, the more domey the top, the more understable the disc will be. (Conversely, the flatter the top, the more overstable the disc will be.) Now, this leads us to the question of disc colors and drying times.

After talking with most of the major disc golf manufacturers, it became apparent that cooling time and dominess are related. One comment involved dropping a disc in water straight out of the mold to cool it quickly and maximize the dome - although I don't think anyone does this by design.

Now with cooling times affecting dominess, and dominess affecting stability, the question becomes, Do different colored discs cool at different speeds? The consistent answer I got is probably not. There are many variables that affect cooling times - hold time in the mold, the temperature of the plastic that is poured into the mold, room temperature - and when it comes to cooling times, each of these plays a much larger role than the color of the disc. This means that the color of the disc does not have a noticable impact on the stability of the disc.

Now I know why I had never heard this theory before.

Sincerely,

Torque Novitski, Marshall Street