Cal Club Timing

[Steve Ekstrand]

I know its probably been beaten to death, but I gotta ask if there is anything we can do about the computer/timing issues.

We have great people. Are we failing them with a lack of proper equipment or resources? I've been talking to other regions about our problems and the one thing that comes back is that we may be behind the upgrade curve. That might be because of our customization. Not sure if that's the case, but if it is, should we reconsider the need for custom features if it means we have to have buggy software?

[Grant Heathman]

I know this adds cost to each person that wants to run, but really if there is anyway everybody could move to a transponder based system such as AMB that would be great. I have used it to do time trails at willow and so simple this could help beacuse then you would not need a timing expert on site all the time. Also based on the cars ($$$) at the event event this weekend a few hunderd bucks per person is cheap if the event could start and run on schedule.

[Jayson Woodruff]

I know this adds cost to each person that wants to run, but really if there is anyway everybody could move to a transponder based system such as AMB that would be great. I have used it to do time trails at willow and so simple this could help beacuse then you would not need a timing expert on site all the time. Also based on the cars ($$$) at the event event this weekend a few hunderd bucks per person is cheap if the event could start and run on schedule.

To do it right you'd need to put the antenna in the ground. Doubt any venue would let us do that. To do it wrong means duct taping it to the ground, which comes up about every hour and will get destroyed if you dont re-tape fast.

The actual issues is in the scoring program, the timing is rock solid. We can time a practice with probably a 99.99% accuracy rate if nobody walks throught the lights.

Jay W

[Eric Stanley]

We can time a practice with probably a 99.99% accuracy rate if nobody walks throught the lights.

Jay W

Since we run in a wind-tunnel at Fontana, it seems that someone walking through the lights is far less likely than stuff blowing through the lights. I admit I've only been doing this a few months, but I'm a little surprised by just how often - and for how long - we have to stop the conga line for "timing problems." The last event in Fontana had so many re-runs due to timing problems some started to grumble about the "fairness" issues of all those people getting re-runs.

In my short time I've even seen cones go through the lights after the car, throwing the timing off for the next competitor...

There are lots of reasons why timing lights don't work well, and lots of reasons they do. The reality is that we seem to experience plenty of reasons to find a better solution.



Just my $.02

[Steve Ekstrand]

Timing lights themselves can present issues when windy or the sun is at a low level. But if the clock operator is good they can usually be caught.

I'm talking about the computer software difficulties we're experiencing.

[Grant Heathman]

Don't want to beat a dead horse, but the great thing with the stuff from ABM it's a whole system that was built from the
ground up to work together. That means computer system/software and hardware. We have done track days at willow where we did have to tape the loop really did not have any issues, if you want to compare it to the issues I have seen with the lights at events.

Just my .02 also

[Jayson Woodruff]

We have done track days at willow where we did have to tape the loop really did not have any issues, if you want to compare it to the issues I have seen with the lights at events.

How much sideways time did willow see?

Seriously, every autox club I know uses IR beams. Speedventures has AMB systems at their disposal and prefer to use my IR beams.

Jay W

[Rick Brown]

Yes, I'm behind a couple of updates on the software. That may have contributed to the issues we had at the Divisional as SD has the latest update and didn't have the same problems (they were not error free, but the errors were minor). This was the first time we ever used the software in 2 day event mode. The software and timers are really normally very reliable. "Hold the start" at an event is more often a people problem than an actual computer problem, this last weekend was an exception. I simply didn't have time to update this last week and it's usually not a good idea to do so right before an event, especially if there haven't been any recent problems, which there weren't.

AXWare is good news/bad news. Good is it's adaptable and customizable for many types of organizations and the programmer responds pretty quickly to user needs and problems. The program is constantly updating and improving. Bad is that constant changing can lead to new bugs sometimes. While the old DOS program we used was pretty bullet proof, it had quit being updated and being a DOS program was very limiting in a Windows world.

It will be updated before our next event.

[David Avard]

We have done track days at willow where we did have to tape the loop really did not have any issues, if you want to compare it to the issues I have seen with the lights at events.

How much sideways time did willow see?

Seriously, every autox club I know uses IR beams. Speedventures has AMB systems at their disposal and prefer to use my IR beams.

Jay W

Not only sideways, but how many cars are capable of spinning their tires at the start/finish line at Willow? Even the lowliest HS car can usually spin their tires across the start line, and most finishes either involve full-throttle acceleration in lower gears, max lateral g's, or max braking across the finish line. Any tape that would hold up to that likely would be a bear to remove from the pavement.

[Steve Ekstrand]

I've used AMB systems, they are great.

They won't work for autocross. Let's not waste time on it.

[Christine Grice]

Being a grassroots, run what you brung, we will let anyone race type of racing, it would be pretty much impossible to implement a transponder system.

As for the timing:

1. I think the first step to limiting the number of timing errors is to require the course designers to leave enough room behind the start line for the people in the motorhome to see at least 5 cars. The next step would be to force grid to keep at least 5 cars lined up in that area.

2. We are using the exact same software as San Diego (although we were one version behind this weekend because Rick does not like troubleshooting new software bugs on the fly).

3. In San Diego they have 5 people in the trailer: Announcer, Computer Operator, Master Radio, Time Recorder, Clock Operator. In the Cal Club motorhome the clock operator and the computer person are the same person. (although if you try to stuff another person in our motorhome it might get too cozy) With a person dedicated to watching the timing clocks, San Diego is more likely to catch a problem where a course worker/trash/dust devil causes a false trip of the lights.

On Sunday during the 2nd and 4th groups (times when I was in the trailer) we had to hold the start several times, but none were because of the computer system. We had false finish trips, broken cars, so many cone calls that the master radio couldn't keep up, a car pulling straight up to line and then immediatly being sent so that our time recorder missed the fact that he was ever there...

I guess my point is that you might be trying to troubleshoot the wrong part of the system.


Edit: Don't get me wrong, the software has its bugs, but most of the time I have seen problems it has been human error.

[Will Kalman]

On Sunday during the 2nd and 4th groups (times when I was in the trailer) we had to hold the start several times, but none were because of the computer system. We had false finish trips, broken cars, so many cone calls that the master radio couldn't keep up, a car pulling straight up to line and then immediatly being sent so that our time recorder missed the fact that he was ever there...

Christine is right on, here. I was the computer/timer person for the 5th group and we had multiple instances where we were trying to figure out via radio with corner stations if a DNF was before or after a stop for a downed cone or a red flag. These conversations are VERY bandwidth consuming on the radios and cause problems where there are several cars still out on course and cones being called in. Many of the "hold the starts" were due to trying to sort out the backlogged calls over the radio before adding more to the mix with continued starts. That's not a computer or timer problem, just a matter of people trying to keep up with the action.

Now, if someone wants to develop a Wi-Fi PDA-based system where the cars are staged and show up on the corner stations screens and the corner stations just click on the penalty which gets relayed back to T/S (with an acknowledgement to guarantee accuracy as well as a local memory log) - go for it!

[Aaron Goldsmith]

On Sunday during the 2nd and 4th groups (times when I was in the trailer) we had to hold the start several times, but none were because of the computer system. We had false finish trips, broken cars, so many cone calls that the master radio couldn't keep up, a car pulling straight up to line and then immediatly being sent so that our time recorder missed the fact that he was ever there...

Christine is right on, here. I was the computer/timer person for the 5th group and we had multiple instances where we were trying to figure out via radio with corner stations if a DNF was before or after a stop for a downed cone or a red flag. These conversations are VERY bandwidth consuming on the radios and cause problems where there are several cars still out on course and cones being called in. Many of the "hold the starts" were due to trying to sort out the backlogged calls over the radio before adding more to the mix with continued starts. That's not a computer or timer problem, just a matter of people trying to keep up with the action.

Now, if someone wants to develop a Wi-Fi PDA-based system where the cars are staged and show up on the corner stations screens and the corner stations just click on the penalty which gets relayed back to T/S (with an acknowledgement to guarantee accuracy as well as a local memory log) - go for it!

Well I think SFR has gone to the new Nationals style helmet barcode system. At which point who cares how many cars are in line ;).

[Jayson Woodruff]

Some observations, #2 Larry was very hesitant about using the updated version at the SD Div. Most regions are now 'waiting' to update their software due to some of the buggy ness that's happend in the past. I still think it was a wise decision not to update the wares before this event.

#3, the clock operator postion in SD is lame. Typically he sits there and does nothing until something goes wrong, then panics and someone else jumps in and starts pushing the wrong buttons. I see way more human enduced course clearing errors in SD than in LA. It used to say (and may still) to pull off the course and return to grid when red flaged which REALLY screws things up.

Jay W

2. We are using the exact same software as San Diego (although we were one version behind this weekend because Rick does not like troubleshooting new software bugs on the fly).

3. In San Diego they have 5 people in the trailer: Announcer, Computer Operator, Master Radio, Time Recorder, Clock Operator. In the Cal Club motorhome the clock operator and the computer person are the same person. (although if you try to stuff another person in our motorhome it might get too cozy) With a person dedicated to watching the timing clocks, San Diego is more likely to catch a problem where a course worker/trash/dust devil causes a false trip of the lights.

[Max Hayter]

#3, the clock operator position in SD is lame. Typically he sits there and does nothing until something goes wrong, then panics and someone else jumps in and starts pushing the wrong buttons. I see way more human enduced course clearing errors in SD than in LA. It used to say (and may still) to pull off the course and return to grid when red flaged which REALLY screws things up.

Jay W

I worked clocks in SD - it's not lame if you know what you are doing. I managed to correct numerous running thru the lights and incidents before the next car came in, and thus preventing the need for reruns, It's one of those jobs that could be considered easy, but you need to know what you are doing, pay attention to the number of cars on course, listen for unexpected beeps, and make adjustments quickly and correctly when things go wrong. An experienced operator (or someone just brilliantly intelligent like myself) is the key. Otherwise, as Jay says, it is a useless position. I volunteer to do clocks for all my future work assignments

[Bob Beamesderfer]

(or someone just mildly retarded like myself)

Fixed that for ya.

SD's rule that when red flagged you should drive off the course and back to the grid was/is just wrongheaded. Someone does that and drives by some inept corner worker and suddenly there's a DNF call that isn't right.

[Rick Brown]

Another issue with the latest version of the software is that when you do a Reset Finish on the timer, it no longer resets the computer like it's supposed to so the extra worker in SD in timing might make sense until that's fixed.

[Steve Ekstrand]

I don't think anybody is complaining about Sunday's delays.

What brought this up is obviously Saturday's near multiple catastrophic breakout the stopwatches and wipeout the results entertainment.

If Mari hadn't been in the trailer, Saturday would have made National autocross message board infamy.

[Mark Duerst]

[quote="Jayson Woodruff"]Some observations, #2 Larry was very hesitant about using the updated version at the SD Div. Most regions are now 'waiting' to update their software due to some of the buggy ness that's happend in the past. I still think it was a wise decision not to update the wares before this event.

Just to clarify - Larry spent all week (while at work no less) running this update to see how everything would work. This included running some simulated runs etc. Larry and I also spent a lot of hours cleaning up the registration list -first/last name, numbers, co-drivers etc. He made some test runs on importing items from motorsportsreg.com (which was another fun thing to learn) before he imported the actual registration database. He still had to do some massaging for a 2 day event.

#3, the clock operator postion in SD is lame. Typically he sits there and does nothing until something goes wrong, then panics and someone else jumps in and starts pushing the wrong buttons. I see way more human enduced course clearing errors in SD than in LA. It used to say (and may still) to pull off the course and return to grid when red flaged which REALLY screws things up.

What is lame is people who sign up for clocks and have no idea what they are doing. I suppose having an announcer who does not know how to run the clocks is better though. And by the way, Max you are the greatest at clocks!

By the way pulling off course for a red flag is not the norm in San Diego.

[Christine Grice]

I don't think anybody is complaining about Sunday's delays.

What brought this up is obviously Saturday's near multiple catastrophic breakout the stopwatches and wipeout the results entertainment.

If Mari hadn't been in the trailer, Saturday would have made National autocross message board infamy.

Yes, Saturday sucked. But what you have to remember is that this is the same program we have been running for a couple years now and we have never seen any of the problems that we saw this weekend. It was the exact same software we used for the last several events and it didn't crash then.

The only thing that I thought of that changed for this event was that we got the pre-reg list from the motorsports site, not our solo2.com site. Rick swears it's not possible but I suspect it was some formatting of the registration text file that was a little off that caused the problems this weekend, but like I said, Rick knows the software and says that that wasn't the cause.

[Bob Beamesderfer]

I don't think anybody is complaining about Sunday's delays.

What brought this up is obviously Saturday's near multiple catastrophic breakout the stopwatches and wipeout the results entertainment.

If Mari hadn't been in the trailer, Saturday would have made National autocross message board infamy.

Yes, Saturday sucked. But what you have to remember is that this is the same program we have been running for a couple years now and we have never seen any of the problems that we saw this weekend. It was the exact same software we used for the last several events and it didn't crash then.

The only thing that I thought of that changed for this event was that we got the pre-reg list from the motorsports site, not our solo2.com site. Rick swears it's not possible but I suspect it was some formatting of the registration text file that was a little off that caused the problems this weekend, but like I said, Rick knows the software and says that that wasn't the cause.

Well, while I totally trust Rick's knowledge of the software and its relationship with the file formatting that we normally feed it, text files can have formatting/tagging elements that wreck havoc with systems that don't know what to do with them.

The size of the text file can be an issue. Programs that don't expect files over a certain size, and it doesn't have to be that big, can suddenly choke. The reason for that can be something as seemingly unrelated as the size of the hard drive on which the program lives. [QuarkXpress 3.x, running off disks 1gb and larger, and text files larger than about 60-75kb, program generated an error when importing the file.]

That doesn't sound like a large file, but the Sunday NYSE stock table that we/they used to run in the LAT was 150kb or so for 3,000 stocks with 7 columns of data. File size notwithstanding, that's a lot of information to absorb -- font, size, leading, horizontal scaling, horizontal scaling limits, tab stops, column width, fractions, symbols.

While we don't have quite that much for Solo entrants, there are text and numerical fields and calculations associated with them once the data are imported.

In short, text files are not benign and their small size doesn't ensure an easy transition from one format to another. Images are far easier.

[Steve Ekstrand]

Maybe we could call in Jennifer Love Hewitt to make contact with Craig and lead him to the beyond and away from our timing computers?

[Rick Brown]

Maybe we could call in Jennifer Love Hewitt to make contact with Craig and lead him to the beyond and away from our timing computers?

Finally, a reasonable post in this thread. As long as I'm the club official she deals with..........

[Bob Beamesderfer]

Maybe we could call in Jennifer Love Hewitt to make contact with Craig and lead him to the beyond and away from our timing computers?

Finally, a reasonable post in this thread. As long as I'm the club official she deals with..........

Well, sorry that my first-hand knowledge of tagged text files isn't as enticing as dealing with Ms. Love-Hewitt. Let us know if they're implants or not. We could sell that TMZ and pay for the rehab of the motorhome.

[George Schilling]

Suggestion for next year: If we have another course this long, we should consider spliting the course in two and assign two master radio operators. We should also have an experienced dedicated clock operator/watcher. We should also consider bar coding to free up time so that the computer operator can focus on monitoring the cone calls and getting that info into the computer correctly.