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On this page are subjects that pertain to Timing & Scoring in the Northeast Division, Sports Car Club of America. New E-mail Address For T&S DA Denise Patten, Northeast Division T&S Divisional Administrator has a new e-mail address. She can now be contacted at dmpatten@gsinet.net. April Info from Carla Heath - T&S NA Seems like only yesterday that we were at the National Convention. I hope all your racing seasons are starting/running smoothly. I have a couple of reminders and comments, in no particular order. Results to Topeka: Janet Farwell really needs only a final, Official copy of the race results to post on the website, although I realize that it’s simpler to have one distribution list for everything. Janet can ignore the qualifying results, but she must have the word “Official” or “Final” appear on the race results. If you are making a PDF of the Orbits results to distribute, be sure that an Announcement is added or the header is modified so that “Official” is part of the PDF. If your normal procedure is to simply hand-write “Official” on the top of the provisionals, that’s fine for at-the-track distribution. But take a minute at the end of the day to modify the header at the top of the Orbits results to say “Official.” Then open each race session (in the Processing tab), and print the results to a PDF. Your new PDF now says “Official,” can be sent to Topeka and anywhere else you’re going to send it, and you only have to change that header once. [I guess that’s the advantage of having that header as a separate template, despite all the other drawbacks.] Annual waivers and worker lists: Some regions have a sign-in sheet for workers in the timing room, so the chief knows exactly who is there each day. And some regions don’t do this. With the increased number of annual waivers, you may need to have a sign-up sheet or other record of who worked the event. If the registration process at your track requires that you get an armband or sticker, then your presence at the track is most likely recorded by the registrar. If you can simply enter the track with your annual SCCA credential, then the chief is responsible for keeping track of workers each day in case of insurance claims. I would suggest that these lists be given to the Race Chairman or some other region official for safekeeping. Track records: There’s some movement in the Northeast Division to collect all the track records on one website, or on several. This is an excellent idea, and I hope all divisions will follow, if they don’t already have such a collection. Two class changes need to be made this year: B Prep should be copied/changed to STO, and D Prep becomes STU. And thanks to Darrell Anthony for spearheading this effort in NeDiv. Activity record online: Please encourage any workers who don’t already do this to start. If you record the events you worked on the SCCA website, you will automatically receive a discount on next year’s National dues. If your renewal date is coming up and you didn’t record your events from last year online, you may still be able to record them and get the discount. Divisional training sessions: I’m sure by now most divisions have had their spring training seminars. I went to one in NeDiv, and it was great. The train that Denise set up to run transponders over a loop was the perfect way to generate passings into Orbits, so there was real, live data to see. I hope your session was as successful. GCR compliant results: To help eliminate the misconception that Orbits is not capable of producing GCR compliant results, I have attached a Word document from Con Peplowski which outlines the basic steps in this process. As there are many unique situations in SCCA racing, feel free to modify this file to suit your division or region. That’s enough business for this e-mail. There’ll be Runoffs info in the next one. As always, I welcome your questions and comments. Although, to quote Jeff Dahnert from the convention, “in the spirit of ‘make it easy, make it fun,’ please make your questions easy, so I can continue to have fun.” Carla 2009 GCR Compliant Results Official Results Absolutely, Positively, Must Include: Track name, track length Date of the event Sanction number (it is best if only the sanction number that applies to that result appears on it; don’t put all the possible sanction numbers on all the results) Name of the region conducting the event Scheduled duration of the race (laps or miles) Total number of entries, including DNF’s and DNS’s Overall and class finishing positions Driver’s full name, hometown, and state Driver’s region of record and membership number Car number, class, make, and model Overall time of the race Winner’s margin of victory Winner’s average speed Fastest lap time for all starters New lap records Provisional Results must have the time of posting written on them; the time they are printed is not sufficient. Things to Remember When a car is disqualified, excluded, or withdrawn, the results should list the car at the bottom of the finishing order. All other cars would appear with their adjusted overall and class positions. If a car is given a time, lap, or position penalty, move the car to the position that reflects the penalty. Place an asterisk next to his number, and state the reason for the penalty on the bottom of the results. To be considered a starter: The car is on the track (not in the pits) when the green is displayed, or the car enters the track before the checkered flag is displayed. Cars that turned a wheel on track at any time during the course of the event are considered participants. If they don’t start the race, they are marked as DNSs. Drivers who entered but did not turn a wheel at the event should not appear on the final results. To be considered a finisher: The car completes half the laps of the overall winner. In the case of an uneven number of laps, divide by two and round down (in an 11 lap race, 5 laps are needed for a finish). The car may finish in the pits by being pushed or driven over the control line. A car has 5 minutes after the checkered flag to complete the lap. A Few Reminders and New Things The Chief of Timing and Scoring must hold a National license only at national races. For Drivers Schools and Regional races, only a Divisional license is required. Car numbers shall be at least 8 inches high, with a 1.5 inch stroke, on a contrasting background. Rear winged Formula cars shall have as large a number as possible on their rear wing side plates. All numbers must meet the approval of the Chief of T&S. At National races, the GCR calls for 2 separate timing systems, 3 continuity tapes, and 3 independent lap charts. If there is insufficient staff, the Chief of T&S notifies the Chief Steward, who may waive this requirement. This is also suggested procedure for Regional races. The GCR recommends that one of the systems is AMB and the other is an electronic timer (e.g., Chronomix) with the times matched to continuity tapes. If it is not possible to run two different systems, you should do AT LEAST 1 of the following: • Use photocells, hooked into the AMB decoder • During races, do at least 1 lap chart by hand or independent computer. • Use 2 different decoders and 2 computers, even if there is only 1 loop. Be sure the different systems are plugged into different circuits, power strips, or outlets. • Use photocells, hooked into the AMB decoder AND into an electronic timer which prints the times (such as a Chronomix). In the event of a serious problem with AMB, the tapes can be collated with the electronic timer times, and time cards created. (Yes, slow and painful, but still a choice.) Results distribution: “The organizing region will send Official Race Results to the National Office Results (printed or photocopied or via e-mail) within five (5) days of the event. Additionally, for national races, the organizing region will send one (1) copy (printed or photocopied or via e-mail) to the appropriate Divisional Pointskeeper (including qualifying) within five (5) days of the event. Additionally, the organizers shall provide Official Race Results (printed or photocopied) for each entrant either during the event, or shall either mail photocopied results at the organizer’s expense or mail results (at the entrant’s option), within seven (7) days after the conclusion of the event.” [GCR 3.7.2] If e-mailing results, please send final qualifying and race results in PDF format to Janet Farwell at the SCCA National Office (jfarwell@scca.com), the National Administrator (timing@scca.com), and Jim Creighton (jcreig53@mindspring.com). Late checkered flag: “If the checkered flag is not displayed at the scheduled end of the race (in other words, if a race is one or more laps longer than scheduled), the race shall be scored as if it had ended at the scheduled length. If the starter becomes aware that one or more cars have passed the finish line after the scheduled end of the race, the starter, with the concurrence of Timing and Scoring and the Operating Steward, may show the checkered flag immediately.” [GCR 6.7.4.B]. Forms Qualifying & Race Results Samples Lapcharts with Car Number and Class from Orbits This is courtesy of Marie Sheehe of Glen Region. The phone number and email in the document are “very old”. If you want to contact her, the current email is mariesheehe@gmail.com. Orbits 4 SP1 Outline & Documentation Orbits 4 SP1: Tips And Tricks Event Set-up: Be sure you select the appropriate time lines for your track. In most cases, you will want to select “2 timelines” and choose “Start/Finish, Start/Finish Pits”. As you build the footer, you can include the region name and sanction number as the first line of the footer. This places it in the highlighted strip at the bottom of the results. You may want to also scan the T&S chief’s signature and embed it as a graphic in the footer area so the results are always signed – even electronic copies. Even if you are connecting through a device that can dynamically assign IP addresses, you should hard-code a static IP address in the primary Orbits computer. In this way, there will always be a consistent and known address for Rmonitors, I-Card generators, Orbits Remote consoles, etc. to use for connections. For double events, you have a couple of choices – you can set it up as two completely separate events, or as a single event and include the sanction number either in the name of the run or as an announcement that you embed ahead of time on each run. (See a caution under track records if you do separate events.) During your event set-up, if you choose a set-up that was used for a previous event (rather than create everything again), make sure you use the most recent event to carry the latest track records. Competitor Database Because so many things change, I do NOT recommend trying to maintain a permanent database. Instead, as you set up each event, clear out all of the old entries in the competitor database and start clean. (You should create a back-up folder and save all the data there before deleting the entries in the database.) If you are using DLB Registration, Donovan typically sets up the last field in the ‘Orbits’ download to be the group number. If you assign one of the additional data fields in Orbits to include this value, it makes population of the event very easy: Just import the DLB Orbits file into the Competitor Database, sort the database on the ‘group’ field and then highlight and drag each group into their respective registration group. In this way, there is no need to sort through all of the different class designations. Downloading and populating Orbits in this way usually takes a total of about five minutes or less. Transponder numbers There is no need to include leading zeros on the transponder number. When a driver gives you a transponder change during an event, do NOT delete his original number – just add the new number as a second transponder (you can enter up to three different transponders). There have been times when a driver changed and then reverted back to their original transponder. If you leave both numbers on his entry, you are covered regardless of which transponder shows up on the track. CAUTION: You may need to be careful of this approach when you are in a transponder rental environment and transponders may sometimes be swapped between cars. Position-in-class When SP1 was first released, it did not include DNFs, DNSs and DQs in the position column – only in the differential column that we normally do not print. AMB did a really quick fix for us and included these designations in the overall position column. (If you happen to have one of the first releases, you may want to go to AMB’s website and download their latest version). Unfortunately, they still show position values in the PIC column, which can be confusing to points-keepers since this is the column they typically check. I suggest that when you publish official results (assuming that you print to the PDF writer to produce an electronic copy), that you pull the results into Acrobat and delete those PIC values for the DNFs, etc. Split Starts Orbits does not inherently produce split start grids, but there are a couple of ways to accomplish this. If you have a single qualifying session, you can just use the “Corrections and Penalties” function for the competitors that you want to put in the front pack and invoke the “Correct the Position” box to place the cars in the appropriate split start position. Unfortunately, if you have multiple qualifying sessions and you must merge the sessions together to produce the grid; the “Corrections and Penalties” function is not available on a merged file. In this case, you can make use of the “Points” field of the competitors (available for the first time in SP1) that you want in the front pack on just one of the qualifying sessions to force a split. For instance, if there are 8 cars to be in the front pack, assign a points value of 8 to the first car, 7 to the next, etc. Then when you merge, select the “Most Points Sort” to put these cars up front. The remaining cars where you have not assigned points will follow in their appropriate position. Numeric Grids: Many grid people like to have a numeric listing of the grid so they can quickly find where a car belongs on the grid as it approaches. You can accomplish this in Orbits by going to the Processing tab and selecting “Starting Grid”. Choose the race that you are using, then select the qualifying session or merged file to use for the grid, and click on ‘Finish’. On the resulting pane, select “Print list” under Publish tasks and you get the numeric order in very large font. This can be photocopied on the back of a normal grid and the grid workers now have the best of both worlds (and they seem to like that large font as well). Note that when you do this you have pre-populated the race run – some people prefer this anyway. Announcements: Even with a very small field, there can only be 4 announcements on the first page of results. A fifth announcement will force a second page. For this reason, you may choose to edit and combine multiple announcements into one. For instance, if you had 3 or 4 track records (along with other announcements such as penalties), you could simply create an announcement that reads: “New track records: #65 in SRF, #6 in SM, and #82 in SSB” You could also include the lap time if you choose, although both it and driver’s name is available immediately above in the results themselves. This will keep the results on a single page. There may be cases where you need to print in landscape mode – such as an endurance race that must also include multiple drivers plus a logbook number. This creates a problem since announcements do NOT print in this mode. You can manually add the announcements by creating a text box in the footer area, and use a relatively small font to type in the announcements. Overall Race Time: The GCR requires that this be shown, and it is not inherent in the usual Orbits result print-out. You could include a column for “Total Time” – but this takes up a lot of space and is actually only needed for the leader. Probably the easiest way to include this information is to create an announcement ahead of time for each race that says: “Overall Race Time: “ which can be completed as soon as the checkered falls. This will be sure that this is the first announcement on the page. (Note that you could also include the sanction number as part of this same announcement if you are combining a double event in a single set-up.) Track Records: You would expect that the records would stay with the track, but they do not -- they stay with the event! Because of this, if you have a double event, and you set it up as two separate events, then any records that are established on Saturday do NOT automatically populate into Sunday’s races, even though it is the same track. At the end of the day on Saturday, you must export the track records and then import them into Sunday’s event to maintain any Saturday records. Back-Ups It is a good idea to make occasional back-ups of the Orbits system – preferably to a jump drive – at least at the end of each day. Be aware that when you use the ‘File/Create a backup’ you are backing up everything that is in that system – all events. There is no need to do a separate back-up for each day of a double event. SP1 makes back-ups a little easier. When you back up to a jump drive, you now have it readily available to load the setup to another computer, either to run an extra system or in case your primary computer crashes. Results Address List Below are the current addresses for administrators and NEDiv pointskeepers. please send results to: ALL RACE RESULTS & TRACK RECORDS PLUS A FULL AMB BACKUP FILE Carla Heath, T&S National Administrator Email: timing@scca.com ALL RACE RESULTS & TRACK RECORDS Denise Patton, T&S Divisional Administrator NEDiv ALL RACE RESULTS Deanna Flanagan, Club Racing Manager Email: dflanagan@scca.com Janet Farwell, Club Racing Manager Email: jfarwell@scca.com Carl & Kathy Matuszek (In addition to posting to MYLaps) FOR NATIONAL RACES Marianne Lyons, NEDiv Pointskeeper FOR REGIONAL RACES NARRC Series Marianne Lyons NYSRRC Series Judy Hurlbut Meg Meyer MARRS Series Shirley Thompson NEDiv ENDURO SERIES (Needs Names and Competition #s) Pro IT: Darrell Anthony Email: darrell@needmoreracing.com NJRRS: Darrell Anthony Email: darrell@needmoreracing.com NAPCC: Jay Creel Email: jaxonmotorsports44@yahoo.com For more T&S Info, contact Denise Patten, T&S DA. Last updated 4/26/09. |
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