COVID-19 Comeback

[Roger Bradshaw]

No one knows exactly how races will start up again as COVID019 restrictions are gradually lifted.  For small to medium sized races, one idea is to give participants very long starting time intervals.  The concept is to avoid start line congestion.  If it's a simple race where you're capturing start and finish reads, here's a good way to score these races.

In Tailor -> Options, use this setting.  It essentially removes "chip times" from the scoring - everyone is scored based on finish time minus start time.

If you expect to have people still starting while the initial participants are finishing, having separate systems for collecting start and finish reads is ideal.  However, if you are attempting this sort of race where you're using a single chip system to collect both start and finish reads, there is an important new setting on the Results 1 tab specifically for this scenario.  Make sure you specify that you're using Common S/F for start reads.  On the Timing Location properties, use the new "Allow Mixed" setting.  With this setting, you can have a true mixture of start and finish reads - start reads for one participant after a finish read for other participants.  Be sure to set an adequate gap factor.

IMPORTANT: When you import chip reads, use a zero gun time.  This way, both start and finish reads are stored as "Time Of Day".  When you import chip reads, participants that have more than one pair of reads that satisfy the gap factor you've set, RD will automatically use the first one.  But, you are given a grid showing everyone with more than one pair of qualifying reads so that you can select the pair you want.

When you run the Overall and Age Group results reports, use this setting.  The result is a well documented report - showing the time of day each participant started the race and the time they finished.   Obviously, the scoring is by net time.

I've also added "Start Time Of Day" and "Finish Time Of Day" as column choices if you use RSU Result Set templates.  You can use this for any race setup - whether you're using normal start reads to capture chip time or if you're using the setting where the start read is the wave time.  The example below is for a race that had typical start and finish reads.  If finish times cross midnight, the date of the read will also be reported.

As we finally get to the point where restrictions on races lessen, letting people onto a race course in small increments may be your only choice for a while.  Reporting like you see below will be useful in documenting how you are deriving finish times.

[Andrew Ninness]

Thank you Roger

[Peter E]

Thanks Roger for putting this together.

[Gerrit Pieterse]

Thanks Roger.

[Toby Davis]

I appreciate this information. I do have a question regarding this. If I am reading this correctly, this can be achieved without a chip timing system? I do not chip time however, record bibs as runners come in. I have a race coming up and the race coordinator is asking for me to do a wave start to avoid a large crowd at the start. Any other advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 8:36:03 AM UTC-4 Gerrit Pieterse wrote:

Thanks Roger.

[Roger Bradshaw]

The main setting in getting all of this to work is the one where RD treats start reads as participant level wave times.  You can only accomplish this with chip scoring.  If whatever you're using to capture the start and finish time for each participant can save the reads to a text file, you can set up your chip system as "Custom" and define what the data records look like.