54 replies to this topic

[Tom Thumb Hobbies]

The R4/4 webcast will begin sometime Friday morning and continue through the weekend. As I said earlier there will be NO audio because of bandwidth problems. SORRY!

The live statistics will be on all the time including practice. If you type in the link be careful because the link is case sensitive.

R4/4 Live Timing

[Richie]

Congrats to all the racers who made the final dance!!! WTG Matt Bruce!

[Rick]

WTG Matt! Good run

I don't understand, if you add up the laps per lane it comes out 285? not 288?? Can someone explain this difference? Hershmans total adds up to a different number also?

[Richie]

Its metric conversion rick LOL!

[Marty Stanley]

What an awesome race! Take lots of people that are interested in retro racing, put the race on an 'Orginal King Track' with racers from across the IRRA land. Folks from most of the IRRA regions made the trek up to Columbus and there were winners from lots of different regions:

Tom Lauderbach - GT-Coupe
James Merriman - Retro Stock Car
Ron Hershman - Formula 1
Matt Bruce - Can-Am

Mike McMasters - a super job! From what I was able to watch on the webcast, things moved along quite nicely, no one has any legitmate complaints and just one well run race.

Yep, the R4 is something that is on my list of things to accomplish.

Now, if I can just get Ralph Thorne, James Merriman, Chris Barnes, Joe McIntosh, Jay Guard and Greg Wells to come on down to Thomasville, Georgia on March 26th and give everything there something to measure their performance against, that would just make me a very happy camper!

[SlotCarsten]

I don't understand, if you add up the laps per lane it comes out 285? not 288?? Can someone explain this difference? Hershmans total adds up to a different number also?

Hi.

I can easily understand that you are confused. Even I was confused for a moment, and I wrote the program. However the explanation is this:

The indication after the decimal point is not "Decimals" but "Sections" !

It appears that Mike chose to have his track divided into 11 sections (*note). The LapMaster lap counting system can work with sections, and when setup like this will count e.g: 32.08 - 32.09 - 32.10 - 33.00 when adding zones together.
However don't sweat. The counting on the track is straight forward in integer numbers. But for the statistics it estimates the section count as well to give you the best possible comparison from lane to lane. Without section the count might be off from the real thing plus/minus 1 lap.

You are absolutly correct in pointing out this is not easy to understand.
I will change the format of the statistics slightly as not to apear to be decimals (32.08) but maybe an indication like this "32~08". (Not 32:08, that would make it look like a time)
Also I will add a note to the statistics page explaining the use of "sections".
This is the beauty of LapMaster, it gets better almost by the race we run with it.

*Note - I beleive this is a small misunderstanding in the setup - I am sure Mike intended to have 10 sections numbered 0 to 9, not 11 sections numbered 00 to 10).

[John Gorski]

Congrate to MATT BRUCE's Big Win!
& Tony P Chassis I would guess
1
Matt Bruce
2
Ron Hershman
3
Tom Lauterbach
4
Mike Swiss
5
Jeff Lauterbach
6
Tom Calvert
7
Cap Henry
8
Ralph Thorne

[Uncle Fred]

Congratulations Matt!

[Tom Thumb Hobbies]

WTG Matt! Good run

I don't understand, if you add up the laps per lane it comes out 285? not 288?? Can someone explain this difference? Hershmans total adds up to a different number also?

This is taken from the LapMaster help file. I admit it is a little confusing. But it is arguably more accurate.

Note: The lap counts displayed are ”Net laps”. This is not the same as displayed on the lap counter after each stint!

The counts are compensated for the “sector” position at the end of each stint.

For instance, if the car completes the first stint stopping just before the counter, then at the next stint it goes a little over 10 laps, this time stopping just after the counter.

In this case the counter would show “11.00” since the car parsed 11 times, and it stopped in the first sector. However the true distance (for the purpose of statistics), is just “10.01”.

10 laps and one sector. This is what would be displayed in the statistics section.

[vdel11]

Mike, what the heck are you doing up! You and Cindy should take the next few days off and relax.
Vince

[Ron Hershman]

Mike, what the heck are you doing up! You and Cindy should take the next few days off and relax.
Vince

He is already planning for next year's event... The work never ends.

[vdel11]

But since you are up you might as well get started for next year

Mike, what the heck are you doing up! You and Cindy should take the next few days off and relax.
Vince

[vdel11]

Your too quick Ron.

But since you are up you might as well get started for next year

[Tom Thumb Hobbies]

But since you are up you might as well get started for next year

Actually we already have about a page and a half of notes from this year. The best way to improve is to consider what didn't work as well as planned.

[Rick]

Hi.

I can easily understand that you are confused. Even I was confused for a moment, and I wrote the program. However the explanation is this:

The indication after the decimal point is not "Decimals" but "Sections" !

It appears that Mike chose to have his track divided into 11 sections (*note). The LapMaster lap counting system can work with sections, and when setup like this will count e.g: 32.08 - 32.09 - 32.10 - 33.00 when adding zones together.
However don't sweat. The counting on the track is straight forward in integer numbers. But for the statistics it estimates the section count as well to give you the best possible comparison from lane to lane. Without section the count might be off from the real thing plus/minus 1 lap.

You are absolutly correct in pointing out this is not easy to understand.
I will change the format of the statistics slightly as not to apear to be decimals (32.08) but maybe an indication like this "32~08". (Not 32:08, that would make it look like a time)
Also I will add a note to the statistics page explaining the use of "sections".
This is the beauty of LapMaster, it gets better almost by the race we run with it.

*Note - I beleive this is a small misunderstanding in the setup - I am sure Mike intended to have 10 sections numbered 0 to 9, not 11 sections numbered 00 to 10).

I know you would like to have the fanciest system out there but the sections part should be elminated.( just whole numbrs) It gives a false number for total laps. We only count how many times a car actually trips the counter for final results. The projected finish is a neat idea during the race, but that is just that, a projection. Whole numbers is the only thing that counts. The finishing results are correct as to placement of the finishers, no problem there. Just as SRT would always list two racers that were tied at the end and it looked at who crossed first and was almost correct in every instance on the tie.

[Ron Hershman]

It is what it is....... it's like back in the day when "Auto Track" was the first and most commonly used lap counting system.... then it became SRT....not many liked SRT at first, but it all grew on us in time.

Is the Carsteen any better???? While it's different..... it pretty much does the same thing as any other before it's time. Counts laps and lap times.

The Carsteen is way better than SRT when it comes to "live" scoring for the ones at home getting "live" times and lap counts. SRT can't do that.

I guess if the guys at SRT made a system that worked with Windows 2000 and anything later and had some updates/improvements..... then maybe a SRT system would still be used.

New mouse trap...... works on current systems and the "live" scoring is the best at the moment.

It is what it is Rick.

[gascarnut]

I guess the confusing part to me is that there are sections recorded at the end of each heat, which presumably are added up at the end.

This only makes sense if every heat has all the cars starting at the start line, which I'm sure is not the way that the races were run, right?

Did the Race Director input the sections for each driver at the end of each heat? Or are these all just "projections" by the software?

Persumably the final total laps need to have the section information added by the Race director, or was this also a "projection"?

[Rick]

It's always, "it is what it is"

As long as the places for the racers is correct, that is the main criteria. But OMG at least have the total laps correct. Is that too much to ask?

When we begin to start each heat from the starting line, then sections would be important to know, until that time, they are just romance items on the board for the viewers to see. I was under the impression that the racers in attendance were the main focus not the viewers on the interent, but I could be wrong?

[Ron Hershman]

I was under the impression that the racers in attendance were the main focus not the viewers on the interent, but I could be wrong?

And for those racers that were there..... the lap counting was accurate and correct for all races including the totals.

Projections are only based on the lap times and number of laps the racer is averaging at the time. Projections do not include crashes, track calls, cars breaking.

While the computer may tell us we are going to finish with so many laps with three heats to go....... break in the 7th heat and the projection(s) go to heck in a hand basket.

[Garry]

LapMaster is one fine lap counting system. the great thing is the guy is still around to help improve on it and open to change. Not like SRT, those guys thought they had the best mouse trap, and to this day no one still knows how to run it or how it works, case in point how they tell you it works today is opposite of how they told you it worked 10 years ago. SRT was made for the local raceway races that needed alot of versatility and it doesn't matter who wins.

[tonyp]

I thought it was pretty easy to follow what was going on. having the sections visible made it easy to see where people were that were on the same lap. I like the Projected laps as we used to do that in RC and let you easily know the pace and made the whole thing more fun to watch for those of us that have real jobs and can't travel around the USA like gypsy's racing. LOL....

[Garry]

Where are the pictures????

[MSwiss]

I think the system works great.

When I was 27th after 4 heats on Sunday in the heat races,
my wife gave up on me and went back to what she was supposed to me doing,
paying attention to my rental customers. LOL

[Ron Hershman]

Where are the pictures????

Probably later today..... some got home late and had "real" jobs to go to first thing this morning.

Bill Fulmer took hundreds of pics and I am sure there will be a link posted for them this evening after he gets home from his real job.

I remember waiting for some pics you took at the OVCC races a year or so ago and still waiting for them to be posted. LOL

[Rick]

LapMaster is one fine lap counting system. the great thing is the guy is still around to help improve on it and open to change. Not like SRT, those guys thought they had the best mouse trap, and to this day no one still knows how to run it or how it works, case in point how they tell you it works today is opposite of how they told you it worked 10 years ago. SRT was made for the local raceway races that needed alot of versatility and it doesn't matter who wins.

Garry, I have to differ with you. I used to know the SRT in/out frontwards and backwards. Most never knew how much was inside to display. not even the LED race counting or the bar graph for races. Of course I am familiar with SRT and not with the new one. I also liked to be able to read my lap times from far away, but that is my personal view. I usually go against what the gurus like, I guess. Most have never owned or run a raceway or big races, just attend them.

For example, on the beginning of one race, the heat time was set wrong. We had to begin the race over again, with the SRT, you could call a track call, adjust the heat time and continue on where you left off, with no restart. Second flaw I observed, there was a tie in qualifying to the same third digit with no way of knowing the best back up time from the entrant, SRT recored them all with the best backup for you to view, down to about the seventh digit, it very hard to duplicae an exact time to the 7th digit. In several years of using SRT and thousands of qualifying laps, I think I only had a couple times we had to revert to a back up time. Although we had a match on the first 3 digits behind the decimal, the next 4 numbers would find the fastest one. SO although it is antiquated using DOS, it's a pretty good bang for the buck and served our industry well for the last 15 years. It was the very first system actually written by a real slot racer that knew the slot system and not by a prgrammer being told how the system worked.

All in all, any system that counts the laps is working great........