Track meet timing?

[strongislandrunningclub]

Hi all,

We've been using ART for a few years now, but only for road / trail races. I was asked today about timing a high school track meet. not sure if / how ART can do that with all of the different races. If so, can you please share how you do it? If not, what system are you using? We haven't done this yet, but could be a new opportunity for us.

Thanks in advance,

-John McHugh

[Graham Hall]

The main issue is that RFID is not accurate enough. Typically off track times are to the nearest second, whereas track needs to be 0.1second minimum usually achieved by hand timing, and 0.01 by electronic timing using other technology.

The advantage of RFID is the ability to handle lots of runners over a long period of time - compared to most track events being numerically. You could handle say 800m plus races, with up to 20 runners finishing a few seconds apart (but not accurately enough), but think of say 8 sprinters potentially finishing within 1second of each.

[strongislandrunningclub]

Thanks Graham. Is there a system / software that is the standard in that kind of timing?

[Windsor Running]

John, 

The standard in track and field is FinishLynx. It's a line scan camera and software package that allows you to capture very accurate times based on the starting gun. Lynx does interface with ART and once you get the hang of it (I'm definitely not an expert in the integration yet, but there are many people on the list who are and it has been awesome for our COVID spring XC season this year). 

Start up costs are pretty high if you buy new gear, but it definitely gives you another revenue stream for your company because Fully Automatic Timing is almost a requirement for track and field meets these days. Part of this is driven by kids wanting to know where they rank on Milesplit and Athletic.net and they only rank FAT marks.

Jesse

[Aaron Ford]

Highly recommend Easy Meet Manager for software. Hy-Tek has left everyone in the dark since Covid. Agee also interfaces with Easy Meet Manager FWIW.

-Aaron 

[strongislandrunningclub]

Thanks all!

[Graham Hall]

Hi All

It's funny how things come round full circle - since replying to this post I have been asked to time two 5k/10k track events. Having turned down the first as I only had RFID capabilities, I have now sourced a FinishLynx system that I can hire.

My question is would I use this as well as RFID or instead of. I would want to use the lap counting screen in ART software, and could use a separate reader and computer for this.

Has anyone got experience that they can share?

Cheers

On Thursday, April 22, 2021 at 12:52:17 AM UTC+1 strongislandrunningclub wrote:

[reece.bell]

I have a finishlynx system also. For my twilight miles I decided to chip all of the runners and get splits for all of the coaches and keep a lap count for the officials. The system kept everything perfectly, but no one looked at the splits or the lap count. It was a lot of prep for nothing. The only other time I have used both systems in a track scenario was for a racewalk championship. It work well in that case.

[SportMadeSimple]

If you have the Lap Time plug in in Finishlynx, I wouldn't use the RFID at all.  Whenever I'm timing on the track, regardless of distance, I would use Finishlynx and capture each lap.  It's really easy to record every lap and the athletes love having their splits.  You do have to be sure that you can see their numbers clearly on the camera (either hip or bib depending on your setup).