Running a race – A short guide

When you start the programme after initial setup, you will start in the “Free practice” mode, which means power is ON, the counter and timers are running, and you can power ON/OFF using the remote control or spacebar. As this mode says, this is intended for simple practice on the track.

 

If you have many drivers that all needs to practice at the same time, you might find the “Timed practise” usefull. In this mode you set a fixed amount of practise time. When this time is up, power is turned off, and the drivers asked to give up their practise lane for someone else. After a small break (set by intermission time), power is restored and the cycle continues until you take the system out of “Timed practise”.

 

However to organize a real race, you will have to work a little more with the program.

A real race involves 4 distinct stages:

*      Preparation.

*      Qualification in order to determine the ranking of drivers into heats.

*      The actual race, consisting of several stints and possibly several heats.

*      Celebrating victory.

Lets take a closer look at these stages.

Preparation

Preparation can again be subdivided into 2 stages, which must be carried out in no particular order.

*      Setting the parameters of the race.
You do this using the Race Setup panel.
- The first ting to consider is the race type. You will eventually set this to “Heat race”, but if you are planning to do qualification by racing, you must initially set this to “Qualification”.
- Then you should set the racing class, so that track records will be compared and classified in the appropriate class.
- You can optional name your event for reference. I.E. “Club championship 2007”
- Next thing to consider is the stint time, This determines how many seconds you intend to race in each stint. For sprint races “2:00” or “120” for 2 minutes, or “5:00” or “300” for 5 minutes are good numbers.
- The Intermission time, is the time between stints that the driver has to move to another lane. “1:00” (60) or “2:00” (120) are common values for 1 or 2 minutes intermission.
- Warm-up time, is usual “1:00” (60) seconds. The race controller is free to issue as many warm-up periods as he pleases.
- In the qualification group, Qualification time should be set. It is usual “1:00” (60) seconds but can be set at any number the race controller wishes.
- Qualification lane
must be chosen. LapMaster will only record the qualification result on the selected lane. However there is also a setting for “All tracks” if your racing rules allow for free selection.
- Qualification mode
must also be selected. “Fastest lap” is the most common method, but some race series also uses the “furthest distance” method.
- The min lap time is an important parameter to set. You should set this at something like current track record for the class minus 0.5 second.
- If you want to inspect the advanced options is up to you. For a first attempt, I would check “Auto rider track call”, “Announce trackrecords” and “10 sec warning”, “Pling on fast lap”, and leave all other off.
- Click OK to leave the Race Setup panel.

*      Editing the entry list.
You enter the names of all the drivers using the Entry/Qualify panel.
- If not done already click on Clear all.
- Now click on the top empty box of the driver coloum. This will open up a field edit dialog. Enter the name of the first driver and press enter. The system automatically advances to the next driver field.
- Repeat this for all the drivers.
- Alternatively you can load a previous stored list, or you can pick from your catalog of usual drivers.
That’s it for the entry list. If you want to save this list for later, use the save button.
Click OK to leave the Entry/Qualify panel.

Qualification

Qualification is the process of determining the starting order and seeding into race heats. This can be done 3 ways, random by computer, manual or by racing.
We will describe here how it is done by racing.

If you have setup the computer as described above you are now ready for doing qualification. You should be at The main display and the top left corner should say nn/mm Qualification where nn is the latest entry number, and mm is the total number of entries. The first driver should be assigned to the lane selected for qualifying, and the next in line also displayed to the right. The race controller must now ask the first driver to prepare himself, and we are ready to do qualification.

1. If the race controller so chooses, he can provide a warm up period by pressing the “WarmUp” button. When the warm up is over, he can again hit “WarmUp” and allow the driver to drive to the starting line. The “WarmUp” button has now become a “(Cancel)” button, and when the car reach the starting line, clicking on “(Cancel)” prepares us for race.

2. The race controller must now click on the “Start” button. This will start the count down announcement in the speaker system, and then turn on power etc.
When the allotted time is over, the result is automatically recorded in the Entry/Qualify list.

Alternatively you can start the race from the remote by pressing “Off” (to go to “trackcall”), and then press “On” to start.

 

This is repeated until all drivers have raced their qualification. The progress can be examined using either the Result or the Entry/Qualify panel in the intermissions.

LapMaster has an optional feature to support “Buy-rounds” during qualification. This means that a racer can break off qualifying, to come back later, at a cost of a given amount of qualification time.  If you select “Buy round”, the racer is automatically placed at the back of the qualifying order, and the remaing qualification time is calculated and automatically controlled.

When qualification has been completed the race director have one more task to do, and that is to assign the heat and starting lane numbers for the main race. This is again done in the Entry/Qualify panel.
- First the entries need to be sorted according to result. You do this by clicking on the “Qualifying result” heading. The first click sorts with lowest value (best time) in the top. A second click reverses the order to have the highest number (Longest distance) on top.
- Having sorted the entries, you click on “Assign heat and lanes”, to have the computer do this for you. If you forgot to sort, you get a warning. There are several options that you can use to distribute how many drivers you would want in each heat, but for this advanced option you will have to look it up in the Entry/Qualify chapter. For now we will use the standard heat and lane distribution.
- Click OK to return to the main panel.

 

- The final step before racing is to enter the Race Setup panel and change the race mode from qualifying to Heat race. Click on OK and we are now set to go racing.

 

-You could also have used the shortcut “Go race” button from Entry/Qualify and skipped the entry into the Race Setup panel.

Racing

The main display should now show that we are ready for racing. The name of the drivers on each lane is displayed.
- The race controller has the option to grant a Warm-up by clicking on the button.
- Then when ready the race controller must initiate the first stint of each heat by clicking on the Start button. However for the rest of that heat all stint and lane changes are under program control.
- Should a situation arise that requires a track call, the race director can click on Pause, press the space-bar,  or use the remote control.
- When all heats have been raced, the race is over. During the race, the progress can be monitored on the main display or scoreboard.

 

Celebrating victory !

We hope you have enjoyed your first race. !

 

You can now display and print the result using the Result panel.

You can display and print the track records using the track record button on the Main display.

 

You still have the option to celebrate the victories, by printing nice diploma’s for the 1,2,3 or who ever you want, from the Result panel.

You can also save the result or even publish it on the internet using the “Save” and “Web Result” options on the Result panel.