LeRoi wrote:Sounds good. Raise entry fee's by a dollar or two and buy the equipment.
....and buy the equipment 4 years from now so we can score the minor places in 5 road races per year.

LeRoi wrote:How would you feel at a basketball game if the scorers' table missed 10% of your field goals?
The finish placings of a flat rr is like trying to keep score during the pre-game shoot-around.

Sounds good. Raise entry fee's by a dollar or two and buy the equipment. What good is racing if we can't score it properly?

How would you feel at a basketball game if the scorers' table missed 10% of your field goals?

todd h wrote:Is it "time" to revive the old timing chip debate again? Either we complain about the impossible task of seeing everyone cross the line and get timely results or we invest in technology that will do it for us. If nothing changes, we can be sure it will happen again.

They use timing chips at the infineon raceway races where there are several groups lapping eachother and it seems to work real well.

Only if people are willing to pay $90 to $100 for a transponder. I'm convinced that the AMB system with the active transponders is probably the way to go if an electronic scoring system is to be used. The Championchip system just misses to many people. They use to use a Championchip system for the Cross Crusade races up in OR and they stopped using the system due to the number of riders being missed to be dependable. I think the miss rate at the Cross Crusade was like 4%. At the Webcor KOM event they used a Championchip system and I heard they missed like 25 riders out of the 275 or so riders and that was on an uphill finish with no bunches and the riders going relatively slow and probably having to pedal across the finish mat.

The AMB system is much more reasonable in terms of the cost of the basic system $4,500 for the decoder and scoring loop and $2925 for the software. The killer with the AMB system is the transponder cost which as I said above is in the $100 range. Figure at a race like Snelling you need about 900 transponders. In Florida they are using the AMB system for their biggest races. Riders have the option of either buying their own transponder or renting one for $10 per weekend. Florida has about 1,000 riders compared to our 4,000.

With any electronic scoring system you are going to have a limited width on the finish line. The longest scoring cable for the AMB system allows you to have a finish that is 39 ft wide.

A less expensive alternative is to use a 3 camera system like they use at the TOC. But this system would require a truss over the finishline ( again limiting how wide your finish can be) so you can mount the cameras. One camera shoots along the finish line like we currently have. One camera is mounted at the top of the truss on the left side shooting almost straight down getting the right 3/4s of the finishline and the 3rd camera is mounted on the top of the truss shooting almost straight down getting the left 3/4s of the finishline. Of course you need 3 cameras, 3 laptops and a truss ( and due to having to narrow down most finish lines due to the limited width of the truss probably hard fencing to help narrow down the finish. While the 3 camera system would allow us to get all finishers, since having riders blocked out wouldn't be an issue, it wouldn't eliminate human error transcription errors.

Quote:Is it "time" to revive the old timing chip debate again? ...If nothing changes, we can be sure it will happen again.

Something needs to be done. I won't advocate for one solution or another but it needs to get fixed. We spend time and money on BAR/BAT/USAC rankings, Premier series, Jr Points series, Women's series, 99 series, etc. poeple get invested in these things with their teams. They even have the potential to be fun! Either get it right or don't do it. If it is too hard to score 50-100 finishers with the current "system", get a new one. Or how about score only the top 10 and give points (all points) only 10 deep for ALL rankings (btw, just finishing would no longer count for upgrades)

Is it "time" to revive the old timing chip debate again? Either we complain about the impossible task of seeing everyone cross the line and get timely results or we invest in technology that will do it for us. If nothing changes, we can be sure it will happen again.

They use timing chips at the infineon raceway races where there are several groups lapping eachother and it seems to work real well.

Yea, I gotta add to this. I know this is small potatoes compared to Kevin and Chris, but in the 35+ 4/5 B group my teammate, Mac Carey, lead me out into the final turn. He was first around for our group. As a result, I got 4th, my teammate Warren Lane got 2nd and another teammate, Mark Robertson (Joel's brother) got 9th. I know Mac was at least at the back of our group... maybe 20 something. He raced like a Trojan for us and I think it's very unfortunate he's not even placed. I know he was pissed off when he saw it.

I see that my name has been properly restored to it's rightful place in the Snelling results.

No mention of the RED shorts, but Rome wasn't built in a day I guess.

Thanks to whoever took care of this (Casey I assume?) The world is a better place for it. :-)

I'm Pissed! The fact that I survived a crash still finished in the top 15 and was NOT listed is OK with me. My number was covered and I knew the risk of that. What really gets me is the number of guys wearing red spandex. That is never OK.

OK so it looks like the categories have been cleaned up and the missing groups have been added to the Snellling results. Kevin RED Shorts is still MIA in the results ( Since I now can edit those results I might be able to fix that :twisted: )

And now that you've mentioned your RED shorts about 20 times I'm certain to have trouble erasing that knarly image from my brain before I need to go to sleep tonight.

I think we need photos, Kevin. Of the RED shorts, of course.

casey wrote:Kevin,

Do you RED shorts have your race number on them? RED shorts don't mean a lot, especially this early in the season when the officials are getting use to new kits. Also it could be a simple case of human error when the computer person was transferring the results that were written down on paper into the computer ( I'm sure the results on paper didn't properly reflect your RED shorts.

No worries Casey, I was just making light of the fact that, well, I'm wearing RED SHORTS! :-)

I've been racing long enough though to have seen every manner of human error in results scoring, whether the fault of offical human error or rider's poor number placement.

But as I was coming across the line alone and not all that fast considering the head wind and (dare I say it? yes I will) I was wearing RED SHORTS :-) it's not like it was blending in and snuck by. So it kind of surprised me to be missed. I'm not taking it personally though. I just thought it was out of the ordinary.

Quote:( I'm sure the results on paper didn't properly reflect your RED shorts.

Surely that is a deficiency in the current scoring system...

Thanks,

Kevin "RED Shorts" Metcalfe

I can verify that Kevin's shorts were definitely RED.

and that he was the next finisher after me.

At the time the results were posted only the first 7 finishers were listed and they said they'd sort out the rest later.

Kevin,

Do you RED shorts have your race number on them? RED shorts don't mean a lot, especially this early in the season when the officials are getting use to new kits. Also it could be a simple case of human error when the computer person was transferring the results that were written down on paper into the computer ( I'm sure the results on paper didn't properly reflect your RED shorts.

You're not alone, Kevin. Somehow they managed to miss the entire Junior 13-14 Boys field, although they did get the two girls racing in that field. Go figure.

The Merced Crit results are also up and they look correct.
https://www.usacycling.org/results/?permit=2008-329

casey wrote:Yea I let the Sportsbase folks know about the mistakenly identified fields. I was waiting for those errors to be fixed before passing on the results link to the road page and Steven Woo.

I finished after Chris Phipps in the M35+ race in 8th place. At the results table they had the top 7 and then nothing else. Since places went to 6th we just ignored it and left it to them to sort out while we drove home. Imagine my surprise to see that I was skipped over in the results. The next 6 places 8th to 13th (should have been 9th to 14th) were the guys in the group I had just recently left.

So I guess my question/comment is: How the heck did that happen. I mean, for the love of God I'm wearing RED SHORTS! Was it too much and they had to look away? :-) Did it burn the film as I came across?

Seriously, I was alone and I just can't image how I could have been missed.

Not that it matters that much, but still...

Yeah, I know. If you want the results to be right you need to stick around. But still. How do you miss one person coming across alone... in RED SHORTS.

Thanks.

Kevin Metcalfe
Team Specialized Racing Masters
(in red shorts. Did I mention the red shorts???)

Yea I let the Sportsbase folks know about the mistakenly identified fields. I was waiting for those errors to be fixed before passing on the results link to the road page and Steven Woo.