David J Marguglio wrote:Yes, it was a great track! Can someone explain what the hell was wrong with the timing system? Some of us had their best time erased by what seemed like a larger than usual resulting "no time". We must have set a record for re-runs. Does the system not react well to coffee or is there something more?
David,
On behalf of the timing team, I want to say that I'm sorry for any lost time and reruns -- at least reruns by timing mistake. What is wrong with the timing system is that there are humans operating it! Well, a lot of good stuff happened in timing, but some not so good. Here's a peek at this world of black magic:
1. One was human error on the computer operator which was me in one case. Specifically, I had let cars go out on the track for timed runs without entering their numbers. That was a dumb mistake made by a rookie computer operator. That was the start of the second run session. Sorry about that -- really. Unfortunately, a small lapse in concentration and next thing you know there is a track full of cars that need to be cleaned off.
2. Another case was that we had a car somehow not trip the finish light. So, it appeared to the computer that we had more cars on the track than we did. (I think that this was happening during practice runs a few times too). At timing, the only way we can really tell that something is wrong is that some times "don't look right". In this case, you might see a 944 finish with a time of 1:44, and you think that might not be right...or maybe they had a bad run. Then you look at the next car. Then, you have to figure out what is going on, and drag a car off the track (on the computer GUI) so that the other cars on track will get correct times, but even if you can see the problem, analyze it, and correct it, several cars may have already gotten bad times and get the rerun.
3. In another case, a corner worker had called in car off track and out of sequence. But, we never got message of where the car came back on. The timing computer has the ability to pull a car off the track and reinsert it, but we have to know where it goes back on the track relative to the other cars. With only half of the info, everyone who is on the track will get bad times. We had something like six or seven cars on track at once. I think that this is also a little unusual, and we typically space cars a little wider for timed runs.
4. There were a number of spins on track that caused reruns, because cars behind were affected. It seemed that maybe we had more than usual for some reason -- maybe that was also related to car spacing. Timing had nothing to do with these.
I also want to add that timing is much more difficult than it looks. There is a lot going on, and very fast, and most of it human manual work. Even a small mistake can have big consequences. Help the timing people out by staying away from the front of the trailer, use radios to be clear about getting info quickly and accurately, make sure that you have the right car numbers on your car, and don't DNF or hit cones.
Bob