Timing

The following articles show different ways to setup the timing of your event.

Setup Multiple Wave Starts

By default the Start Times (T0) will be set per Contest, however many races require wave starts according to other criteria such as age group, a pre-defined wave number or at scheduled intervals in races such as Time Trials, they may even be random waves with athletes checked in for each. 

Pre-Assigned Waves

If wave starts are pre-defined by some criteria then you can set the Start Times to Wave Start according to: and then enter the required field or expression in the entry field, this can be any text or numerical value. 

The list of Start Times will now show a record for each value which is entered in that field or returned by the expression, it will also return an entry with a blank title where no value is returned. 

You can now enter a Start Time for each wave as normal. 

 

Calculated Wave Starts

The alternative is to calculate a wave start time or assigned start time directly in a result, this is useful for Time Trials or races where waves of participants start at fixed intervals, such as pool-based triathlons. 

In a result create the calculation, for example if participants are in pre-assigned waves and each wave starts 30 seconds apart then you could import the Wave number to an ATF and then your Start Time Calculation could be:

T0 + (Val([Wave])-1)*30

We still use T0 for the first wave to start and then for each wave 30 seconds is added, similar expressions could use a Bib number or sorting rank for individual time trial starts. This does rely on each wave starting on time. 

When using a calculated wave start then you should disable Subtract Start Time (T0) in your Timing Point setup, and you would need to subtract the calculated start time for the relevant results. 

 

Random Waves

The final option occurs when no fixed waves are assigned, participants may be checked in over a specific timing point and then started in groups of a certain size. 

In this way T0 is irrelevant, so again ensure this is not subtracted from your results. Setup a result using an advanced rule to take the appropriate check-in time, most likely the Maximum detection at your check-in Timing Point. 

You can then use the Marker on the decoder and capture a marker for each wave start, and use a second result with an advanced rule to look for the appropriate marker. This is most likely to be the First Marker after the check-in result. 

You can now use this result as your reference to subtract as the Start Time. 

 

Participants in the Wrong Wave

If a participant does not start in the correct wave then you can either change the value of the assigned wave value or overwrite the time in the individual participant's results. A second wave override ATF is also commonly used as part of an expression so that waves can be re-assigned if the waves are based on a fixed value such as Gender or Age Group. 

Handle Multi-Day Races

When timing a race which will go through midnight over multiple days there are some special considerations to make with your setup in RACE RESULT. 

Firstly it is important to understand how the software handles this, rather than using a date/time combination the times will simply continue to count up past 24:00:00 rather than restarting from 00:00:00, so for example 3:30:00am on day 2 would be a time of 27:30:00 or 1:03:30:00 in RACE RESULT. 

When working with multi-day races you must set the event Date From and Date Until in the Basic Settings - Event Settings. 

Only if this is set you will now be presented with three options in the Timing Settings, this controls how the software handles multi-day events.

Ignore date, time starts over at 0 after midnight - with this option the times will start from 00:00:00 at midnight again and RACE RESULT will NOT calculate results that go through midnight. This is useful for events over multiple days which may have different races on different days and so it makes sense to start each day from 00:00:00

Subtract Event Date - when selected this will automatically consider the Event Start Date as the starting point and the times will now continue to count up past 24:00:00 for every subsequent day after this date. With this setting the date will always be tied to the Event Date.

Subtract this start date - when selected this will by default set to the Event Date From, this date is considered the starting point and the times will now continue to count up past 24:00:00 for every subsequent day after this date. With this setting no matter if the date is changed the times will be correct. 

How times are presented in lists can be managed in the Contest Time Settings. The default formatting will display the day, to hide the day and show the time of day append a "%" before the time format. This setting would turn 1:03:30:00 to 03:30:00.

Transponder Code Validation

The following functions allow you to validate that an input matches the pattern of a valid RACE RESULT Active Transponder code, for example if participants are required to enter an individual transponder code during registration. Note it does not truly validate if it is a valid Transponder code. 

If you are using Check-In kiosks to assign transponders then it may be easier to use the option to only allow transponders which are in the chip file to validate against your own stock of transponders. You can import a chip file with all bibs set to 0 for this. 

This can be entered as a User-Defined Function which takes an input to validate the value entered. 

Create a user-defined for isTransponder(x), or an applicable function name with the following expression, this checks that the length is 7 characters, the first 5 digits should be letters and the last 2 digits should be numbers.

Len([x])=7 AND isAlpha(left([x];5))=1 AND isNumeric(right([x];2))=1

e.g. isTransponder([Transponder1]) would return 1 if the value in Transponder1 matches this pattern. 

Limit to one Email/SMS when triggering with an Exporter

When using an Exporter to trigger an Email/SMS template to be sent, it is important to set a filter so that only one is sent. This is necessary since the Exporter will trigger each time a transponder is read for the given Timing Point. This article will explain how to avoid this.

 

We first want to create an additional field as a checkbox called EmailSent. We will use this field to track whether the email was sent or not.

In your Email/SMS template, there is a setting under More Options called "Set checkbox Field". Here you can select the EmailSent field you created. Once the email is sent (manually or using the Exporter), this checkbox will get set to checked.

In your Exporter settings, add the filter below. This will check to see if the EmailSent checkbox is checked. If it is not checked, the email will be sent. If it is checked, the email will NOT be sent.

[EmailSent]=0

Offset raw data times (wrong timezone)

This How-To will explain the proper process for offsetting timing data in the event your timezone is incorrect.

Important Note: If your timezone is wrong and you have already started the race (data has already been collected), you should NEVER change the timezone. This will make things harder to fix. If it is prior to the race starting, you can correct the timezone, and you will not need the rest of this article.

 

Start by pausing your system connection under Timing > Chip Timing; select the yellow pause button on the far right.

 

Delete the wrong data. Navigate to Participants > Delete Data > Delete Timing Raw Data. Select "Show Raw Data Filters," which will open more filter options. Enter the device ID (full ID including letter prefix and dash) you wish to delete the raw data for (the one with the wrong times), then press Delete X Raw Data Entries.

 

Apply the offset and import reads again. Here we can see the time before the offset is applied. From Timing > Chip Timing > Chip Timing, select the details button for the system connection. This is the grey button to the far right.

This will open the details window where you can specify an offset. The offset will depend on how the time is off. If the clock on the system is ahead of the current time, apply a negative offset. If the clock is behind the current time, apply a positive offset. The example below applies a negative 1-hour offset.

 

With the offset applied, press the yellow play button to resume the connection, then press the blue rewind button to load all the passings again with the offset applied. You will notice that the time is now showing 1 hour less.