Unpopular opinion time

@LeoNero  

 
she was absolutely adorable :3

@kleptomage  
I thought AJ had the best stance of the three: it was a family tradition that meant a lot to her, and she was understandably questioning Apple Bloom’s abandonment thereof. It does not excuse her, but it makes her not as bad. Rarity wasn’t cheating in a way that mattered since she wasn’t competing for first, she and those around her were far enough behind Rainbow Dash to be out of the running. Dashie simply disregarded Scootaloo’s feelings wholesale without even taking a moment to listen and say no.
 
And the carts could have done that with gravity alone, really good axles and a particularly tall hill give good potential energy and little work against it. The writers get bonus points for Cheerilee’s physics lesson being accurate.

@GenericArchangel
 
I remember AJ being all about tradition, family and integrity.
 
Later seasons have been creating conflicts off of making one of them fundamentally deficient, or one of them overriding the others. That episode is a perfect example of “Fuck family, decency and common sense, tradition is all that matters”.
 
Remember when she sent Celestia a letter about not having learned anything? Boy, did things go downhill for her ever since.

AJ’s ‘Didn’t learn anything’ letter was one of the best moments in the show.

@GenericArchangel  
>physics lesson being accurate
 
okay, now i’m really curious because i’m honestly not seeing it…  

 
@Dustcan  
it was really funny, but i wish it hadn’t been in an episode where there’s around 12 things she should have learned…

@DanielTepesKraus  
What she said was accurate, the chalkboard just looks fancy.

@GenericArchangel  
oh. so were the carts motorized, or…

@DanielTepesKraus  
Turning potential gravitational energy into kinetic energy is just freefalling, or in this case rolling down a hill. That’s it. You use the acceleration due to gravity to gain kinetic energy.

@GenericArchangel  
I suppose there are two main reasons why Appplejack in the episode rubbed me the wrong way. First, I like cars and technology so AJ’s dogmatic adherence to old-fashioned tradition and being content to drive a laughably slow rickety cart are anathema to me. Second, I’ve had to deal with too many people like her who live in the past and hate anything new.
 
Rarity used the wings on her swan cart to block the other racers. That’s not cool.
 
Agreed for Dash.
 
The race was not on any hill tall enough to generate enough gravity to complete the whole track. It’s impossible. Also, explain this if the carts had no motors:
 

 
There is so much wrong with that I’m not sure where to begin. How about we start with how the carts were built in six hours? They started at sunrise and ended at noon. Building a whole cart in six hours would be extremely difficult with hand (hoof?) tools. Am I supposed to believe they found time to invent the internal combustion engine? Even if you wave your hand and say the carts are powered by magic batteries or whatever, then how does that make sense in the setting of Equestria? If anyone can cobble together a motorized cart in half a day why are there not more carts? Why are they still using steam trains and pony drawn wagons? It’s ridiculous even by the schizo tech standards of the show.

@kleptomage  
Dash might be letting off the brakes there, since the race was generally downhill she may have accelerated. And she still has an old-fashioned F1 cart there, if it was anything modern there’d be way more streamlining and wings. I liked AJ’s dogged commitment to tradition because it meant something to her, and even though it got her in trouble, she stood by what mattered to her.

@GenericArchangel  
the problem is the track is cyclical:  

 
they’d have to go up just as many inclines as they go down. the carts would have maximum “stored” potential energy at the top of a hill, which would have to be expended to climb inclines. not all the potential energy converted into kinetic energy would be converted back into potential energy; some would be lost as sound, heat, etc. even if the carts were perfect machines with zero friction or resistance, a significant amount of energy would be lost on the curves. i’m perfectly willing to accept witchcraft or magic or motors at work, but physics? nope.

@DanielTepesKraus  
They started at the top of a tall hill. If it was tall enough, they’d have enough energy going in to complete the track.

@GenericArchangel  
Why would she be braking in the first place?
 
Completely dismissing anything contrary to tradition is not an admirable quality. That’s called being stuck in a rut.
 
 
@GenericArchangel  
If they started on a mountain maybe, but downtown Ponyville is rather flat.

@kleptomage  
Maybe they started on Discord’s volcano?  

@Wiimeiser  
I always did think that would be an awesome Hot Wheels track. But no.

@kleptomage  
They started on a mountain near Ponyville, of which there are several. Maybe not a full blown mountain, but a hill tall enough to work here.
 
You’d brake because there is such thing as too fast, and overcomittment to tradition is bad but AJ wasn’t too overcommitted.

@GenericArchangel  
only with magic or motors.
 
@kleptomage  
even in a free fall an object reaches terminal velocity, that is maximum speed, in 15 seconds (well, 99% of it; close enough) due to air resistance, meaning no matter how high the mountain was they would stop accelerating (and storing potential energy) in 15 seconds of travel. even best case scenario, that is an entirely flat track save for that first little leg before the intersection, there’s no way there’d be enough kinetic energy to go the whole way even if the track was straight, let alone with those curves.
 
@Wiimeiser  
discord snapping his fingers and making the carts self-propelling would actually be a completely valid reason for them to move.

@DanielTepesKraus  
I think it’s doable with well built carts, so yeah six hours to build makes it impossible. But I feel clever engineers could make it happen.

@GenericArchangel  
It was a small hill.  

 
If you don’t think Applejack was over-committed to tradition I think you ought to rewatch the episode. She was immediately hostile to Apple Bloom wanting to build a more modern cart.
 
 
@DanielTepesKraus  
That’s what I’m trying to say. It’s impossible that the carts could have completed the track by gravity alone.

@kleptomage  
Later shots show the track clearly slopes downward for a while before they hit the curvy bit. Having looked at the end of the track it is too long, I must agree, but I still think that a group of good engineers could do it. They’d need more than six hours and applewood, but it is technically physically possible.
 
And I’m not saying AJ was right, I’m saying she was defending something important to her.

@kleptomage  
That Scootadash clip where Rainbow presses that button confirms well enough that this isn’t just the laws of physics at work. If she was just letting off the brake, we’d see her rear hooves.

@Vivace  
Who said the brakes were the rear hooves? Given how they’re sitting, it’d be awkward at best to push those hooves down to push a pedal. Putting it in the steering column, where the have more freedom of movement, makes sense.

“Cartoons.”

@Dustcan  
Get you and your making sense out of here, we’re having a nerd squabble and won’t quit till one of us comes back with math! Or until we get bored. Whichever comes first.

@GenericArchangel  
The brake requires being pressed and held all while in use. At best, that press would just be cruise control. And how would she experience positive acceleration without a gas button/pedal while on a clearly flat piece of track?