Timing etc

[mrevilracing]

Howdy folks!!

What a year it has been!!!!!
A huge thanks to Rick Johnson for helping with equipment set up/take down, using the start light and covering as car number entry into the software.
Kristen gets a huge thanks for her help(and Rick's) at Jefferson when it was COLD, rainy and we froze, out at timing. LOL!!!!! She has also been a huge help throughout the year on many aspects at the timing tent.
Nancy(my wife) gets the biggest thanks as she has put up with doing registration, helping other regions AND helping with timing. She really has done 1 heck of a job all around.

I encourage folks to come to the timing tent that may be interested in using this timing system in the future. Why? Because we never want to be in the position of the timing person moving on in one way or another and there is no back up.
Luckily, we are retired and had lots of time to learn not only the current system but a new system and keep them separate in our heads. It has been 1 hell of a feat this year to get to where we are.
1st, we had to receive all the timing hardware and get a clue of how it all worked.
2nd, we had to learn the software.
3rd, in the midst of it all, the system Nelson used ONLY for Jefferson, was broken. When we finally got it all fixed(A huge thanks to Grace for being dedicated to fixing it as soon as possible!!), there wasn't enough time to learn it. Especially for our 1st event.
4th, we had to initiate and learn the lapping feature in Axware that no one knew how to use. But we spent, I don't know, maybe 100hours or more, a lot of time on it. Nancy had to put up with being the start and finish light in the garage. And on top of it all, we had to think of every situation that we are aware of that MIGHT happen on the road course, and practice it all. Over and over and over again until we got it down.
5th, since I had started looking at other timing systems 3 years ago, we had to kick it into high gear to get things moving. Our biggest hurdle was as of February, I did not have a software company that was doing what we were doing. This hardware(sold by Phoenix Sports Technologies) comes out of many disciplines of sports and hillclimbing is not one of them.
I asked Axware to integrate the Microgate hardware into their software and they said no.
I looked up which company was being used for SCCA national events and I called them(Pronto Timing Systems). Once I talked to him, it was simply to have the protocol integrated and sorted into the Pronto timing software and we were off and running.
I hired Phoenix Sports Technologies to run the new system at Weatherly and Pagoda, and troubleshoot both portions which went really well.
6th, we signal tested the Microgate hardware and it was really a simple testing procedure with the best part being the fact that there was no pointing antennas in order to improve the signal. You either have a signal or you don't. Yes, it can be 50% or 80%, etc. But the simple solution is to move the radio one way or another in order to improve the signal. And in the case of Weatherly and Reading, we simply jump the signal with a data radio to the start line(similar to the Race America equipment) and it's done.
Phoenix could not time events at Giants or Polish and cannot time Duryea. So it was trial by fire X2. Operate both timing systems at once at Giants, and when we went to Polish, the Race America system was down on Sunday morning until after lunch and we ran the morning session on Microgate/Pronto. Few even knew we did it but we did and it was the 1st time we were live with it. It went REALLY well.

So where are we now? Come Duryea, we will be only using the new system. Anyone who thinks we should also run the Race America system is welcome to set up the big antennas etc but I see no reason to do so as the Microgate/Pronto system works great, as seen at Polish.
Live timing will still be on the PHA site. We will be doing data entry from Pronto to Axware in order to have times up on the PHA site. Yes, Pronto has a live timing module that will be running and we already have it set up on the BMR live timing tab. This will transfer over to the PHA site by the years end. But I need to tweak the presentation with Pronto on a few things.
1 of the cool features will be a link to BEST OVERALL TIMES. For those who are not interested in class results and only where they stand in overall results, you simply click on that link, it will take you to the overall results and that page will update every 30 seconds or so. If you're fighting for the #1 spot, you should know where you stand by the time you stop at turn around. Its a true live timing.

By next year, we will be down to using only 1 monitor and 1 timing software. We need additional folks to watch/learn what is going on with timing. There should never be a time, again, where only 1 person knows timing and everything associated with it because the issue of that timing person leaving timing for 1 reason or another, can happen in the middle of the year and then what???? Timing transitions should be seamless. The software is the only thing that is a challenge and working with it is not that difficult. False starts/stops??? Yes, they happen. But we have multiple correction modes and 2 types of audit trails that can correct false times. Will the corrections be instant? No. Will live timing show the false times? Yes. But as in all other racing events, times shown right NOW are subject to an audit.
Reruns will always be a possibility as it's a financial reason we do not have the ability to cancel out reruns with additional equipment. But the reduction in reruns is the job of the timing/scoring person or team.
This part of the conversation is complicated. So I've given a general explanation of what does/can happen. Anyone who wants a more in depth explanation can see me at Duryea or Weatherly or at 1 of our clean up days and I'll explain it more.
I've looked at multiple systems for timing and anyone who wants to discuss them can see me at Duryea or Weatherly or 1 of our clean up days as I've gotten way deeper than was expected 3 years ago. But it's been fun!!!

The last trick to this puzzle is Jefferson 2022. Nancy and I will NOT be at the event and Pronto is not set up for lapping...yet. I will be working with them after fall Weatherly to get a lapping feature set up.
But there will be 2 options: Use Race America/Axware, as we know that works OR if I get Microgate/Pronto figured out, that can be used. Either way, SOMEONE or SOME FOLKS will need to be trained on timing at Jefferson.
Timing is not difficult. Setting up the Microgate hardware is very easy and mostly color coded. After that, paying attention to what's going on on the screen all weekend is all ya gotta do. 27" screens were purchased so that we wouldn't go batty staring at little laptop screens.
If all else fails, Jefferson can be run as a track sprint(like Shenandoah) and that set up is easy peasy.

While we do not mind people at the timing tent, keep in mind that sometimes we may not be able to talk due to what is going on on the screen or on the radio. Answering questions for those wanting to learn timing is no big deal but it may not be instant. Simply watching what is going on can net quite a bit of knowledge and once we answer questions, that could fill in the blanks.

For drivers who have questions during an event, or anyone else for that matter, we normally have a timing questions clipboard. Just write down a question or problem(like you got the wrong car # assigned in timing) and we will get to it.

We will be testing timing on the Friday of Duryea so we will have the entire system set up and anyone who wants to see how it works, we will be able to do full start/finish testing for demo reasons. Then, you can see how we tear it all down(quick and easy) and put it away until Saturday morning. I'm hoping to have it set up around noon if possible and I'll leave it up for a while as it really doesn't take that much time to take it down.


See y'all at Duryea!!!!!!

[gdh57]

I hope that several people step up to learn the new timing system. Steve shouldn't have to be a one-man-timing-show.

Nelson tried for years to teach other people how to run the timing system at events. He did train Natalie Green and Amanda McCafferty, and both were a big help to him, but very few people volunteered.

As for the hardware setup for the Race America system, I asked for help from the very beginning in 2010, and got very little response.

I do have to give credit to the people who did help though. For the events where we needed to put up the towers, Richard Good took over Friday setup/Sunday teardown for the Reading events, and the Murphy's took over Friday setup/Sunday teardown for Polish. We had permanent tower setups at Weatherly and Giants, and didn't need them at Summit Point.

Shawn Mellinger stepped up to learn and help with event day setup in the last few years. This was something that was of great concern to me even though I had created a very detailed document in the event that I was unavailable (and it was put to the test when I was hospitalized in 2017 -- Nelson was able to do the setup using my document for the events I had to miss). And in 2019, when I once again asked for help because of my health issues, no one stepped up except Rick Kase. Rick was already heavily involved with event day setup, and so volunteering just added to his already heavy workload.

I really hope the PHA community offers more help to Steve going forward.

Grace