Interval start (XC ski) possible?

[Patrick C.]

Looking to do a little informal xc ski race this year--I was wondering if there is a way in ART to do an interval start where each competitor starts 15,30 or 60 seconds apart.    

Ideally the start could be triggered by a start gate but it could also just start the competitors clock at their scheduled start time.  It would be basically the same thing as an ITT in bike racing.

Secondly, I'm looking for an actual physical finish line for XC skiing that you'd recess slightly into the snow   (and I could run antenna cable underneath) if anyone has any recommendations.

Thanks,

Patrick Campbell

[Ted Finch]

We have timed rollerski and sled dogs for Championship level races in Scotland so ART can definitely do this.

For these races we have used HuTags but you will need to go with what you have - but do test it!

A display clock at the start and a good starter will work. ( I can recommend a nice beeping clock too!)

If you use a chip start you can capture the interval starts without a start gate.

At the finish you may need to be a bit creative. If you can bury a couple of cables from antenna on the far side that would work. You may need a length of plastic drain pipe.
We have also used a reader each side of the track with a wifi bridge to bring the signal across to the timing PC.

Ideally you can use the same set up for start and finish else you need to double up the kit.

I hope this helps.

Ted
Keep it Simple Timing
www.kitst.co.uk

[Bill Stokes - Stokes Race Timing]

This idea might work for you.  It is easy to set up a delayed start time for a participant in the Time Race participants area.  ART allows you to adjust their start time.

I do a time trial for cycling where we start each participant at 1 minute intervals. The marshal at the start line has sync'd up his clock before hand with my laptop clcok.  I start the race clock at the start time and the marshall 3 miles away releases the first biker at start time and the next on the list one minute later, and every minute after that.  It's worked perfectly for 3 years now.   I provide the race director the start list for the participants ahead of the race and they send that out by email to all the participants so they know when to show up at the start line.  Anyone that misses their starting time goes to the back of the list and the marshall brings that info to me after the everyone has finished and I make the corrections to their start time in ART.

[Tanvir Ahmed]

HI,

You just need to keep the chip start on, ART will record the last out time for each tag and consider this as the start time for each tag, and adjust the finish time accordingly, this is how we do out ITT events,  if your start and finish are on the same gate, you need to make sure that you get everyone out before the first finisher comes in, so that after all the racers are out you can close the chip start and go back to normal finish time detection because while the chip start is on, every read is the starting read.  

Regards

Tanvir 

[Craig MacIntyre]

I thought the way this works (and has in the past) ... if you are recording start times and have auto-gap set you can just leave it.  The software records the most recent read as the start time and if the next read is after the time gap, that becomes the finish time.  If it is before the gap, then it becomes the new start time.  So you can do both at the same location.  This is a bit risky but for a TT it will work.  Unless the software has changed ...