Race Timing Software
The system is designed to provide clubs with an inexpensive and easy-to-use means of timing races and generating results. It operates on both PC and Mac laptops and provides users with the ability to plan races, register entrants, time the race and produce results. To run the system, you will need:
- A laptop
- An external keyboard
- A copy of FileMaker Pro v 5, 5.5, 6 or 7
- The Race Timing Software
- A printer if you want printed results to display at races.
You can have an unlimited number of athletes, in an unlimited number of categories - all racing together, and each category can have a different start time and a different number of laps in the category. The user can define race titles and categories and also insert up to 4 club or sponsor graphics which will appear in the results.
Note: "Unlimited" will technically be constrained by the storage capacity of your laptop and the maximum file size of the database, however you will not even begin to approach these limits until you have over 2 million athletes.
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A single laptop can easily handle races of around 500 athletes, but this system is designed for longer races - not for 100m sprints! The system automatically knows which lap (or leg of a triathlon) the athlete is on. The system can be networked to provide multiple registration points at large events, and multiple timing points for a triathlon or a multi-lane finish at a large fun-run type race. |
Figure 1. Multiple registration points |
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In the simplest networked mode, one laptop can act as the race administrator where progress results can be produced, while the other laptop is simultaneously acting as the timer. You can choose to display club or sponsor information for athletes in the entry lists or results, and you can also conduct handicap races. |
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Figure 2. Race timing in action |
Timing accuracy will be that of your laptop clock and is displayed to 1 second. Athletes are timed by typing in their bib number and pressing the ENTER key as they finish or transition. The external keyboard makes this process much easier. You can enter up to 3 athletes per second per laptop on a modern laptop.
At a race with about 200 athletes doing 6 laps of the course, it will take you about 4 seconds to generate the final placing results you see here.
The largest races this system has been used for are 2200 riders (cycling – a total of 8500 laps), 950 athletes (triathlon) and 750 runners (fun-run). It has been bench-tested to 9000 athletes. It has been used for Australian Championships in several sports and rounds of National Series Races. It is in use in Australia, USA, Canada, New Zealand and Mexico.
The system comes with full online help containing screen dumps, instructions and examples [see Instruction Help]. Each module has specific help built in to deal with the most likely errors, like if the timer typed in the wrong number and you want to correct it in real time, or they missed an athlete [see Module Help]. Software updates to the system are free for the first 12 months after purchase.
