Was it just me?

[Regan Wilson]

Originally Posted by Jeff Foster

Rock guys are saying they saw it at the nats. but no one as far as I know mentioned it to anyone at the race where I could have looked at it.
As for the 2 pictures, the lines on the wall and ground are refreance points the painters rarely get the lines dead in line with the sensors. As for the bottom photo it looks like the front bumper is higher than the beams, so the nose of Sals car got there before the tires of the roadster.

I watched my Allstars loss a few times in slow motion . Jeff got the stripe by .006 ! On the video (from tv) I saw that he had it by half a tire (both of us tripping the beams with the tires). It looks to me that the nose of Sal's car tripped the beams but Pete's tire did .

[sstSteveM]

I guess this proves the effectiveness of the so-called "stripe taker".....

Do you guys really want the timing system messed with in the middle of a race? Say it gets looked at after a couple of time runs and determined a fix is needed before elims....I guess you would have to give everyone 1 more time shot? It's a pretty crappy and touchy situation.
I am interested in how the timing system is prepared before each event, is the height and distance between the beams checked at both ends each race? Are the dimensions of the projected beam measured? Are the lenses cleaned at the beginning of each day? Is the resistance checked?

man I hate computers....

-steve

[bighead]

Steve

All very good questions. Working on the timing system could be compared to every day maintenance on our race cars. If something is broke, fix it, even between rounds. There is no perfect answer to your question, we can only hope that during a race if there appears to be an electronics glitz/glitch?, that we as racers would have the oppurtunity to present some credible evidence that there may be a problem. I felt helpless last weekend and thought my stuff was broke. The track and electronics should be maintained and checked and verified every morning before any car goes down the track, but if everyhing "seems" ok then why check it? Nothing frustates me more than testing Thursday before an event, only to find out they changed the roll out or reaction time compensation Friday morning.

Bighead

[Jeff Foster]

At National events both NHRA and IHRA we Compulink are under contract to be on site for the event for the event. This includes coming in 2 days prior to the event and doing what we call a track tune-up.
This includes but is not limmited to: removing, cleaning, repairing, testing and re-seting all IRs. Fininsh line hights are set, start line roll-out measued set and equalized lane to lane. Go through all wiring and compents, update and check CPU programs and files. Every morning after the track is sprayed IrRs and reflectors are cleaned.
A start line IR can look just fine when tested and while setting roll out. If it is getting weak it is some times hard to detect until cars are showing bad times, sometimes Iam lucky and when they get weak it shows in the roll-out test, but many times it doesnt appear until the vibration of the car is inclded into the process.
Antime your at a National event and want to join me at 5:30 am as I clean and check the roll-out come out (just bring doughnuts or muffins, LOL)
Jeff Foster
Compulink

[SSTRACER323]

Jeff

I will be out there Saturday morning at Norwalk. I would like to see how the prep is done and see how the roll out works. Do you want coffee too?
Everyone knows i will bring the Doughnuts!!! For i am the Doughboy!

Thanks

Originally Posted by Richard Cranium

Mike:

Believe this if you will, our videos were showing the car leaving the beams the same, usuall 5-6 frames and my reaction times were 6-8 frames and as you stated, that should equate to roughly be .000 - .030 in reaction times, not .050 - .070 lights. We have a new high-def camera and it is exactly the same frame time, video after video. After talking with a friend that is involved in electronics at NHRA and NMRA events he told me that it could be as simple as a lazy infrared or the infrared is turned down on sensitivity? What would be cool is for racers to have the ability to approach race control with accurate information and have these problems fixed before first round. I hope no one takes this as belly aching, bashing anyone, or anything else, just curious........

Bighead

That is why we need ICARD back on. With my software I could tell which lane was the problem with evidence. Now they can hide the problems because nobody knows any better.

[SC1317]

Doughboy! You Rock! Where's the Crown Royal!!!

[CBS]

Thanks for the update Jeff....I suspect the starting line photo cells were suspect in Joliet ...I bet they are difficult to detect....I wonder if the manufacturer has a testing method for the strength of the eye...and if that could be added to your morning routine..maybe some sort of hand held receiver that could be held in front of the eye with a meter on it...so it checked the strength and diameter at distance...I guess it still wouldn't add the car vibrations....(Craig Anderson's big power engines probably made it worse) ..Compulink is still the best in our book.....we have had a few isolated incidents...but nothing compared to the other brand....I think, in the future we will be more aware of what can happen and who can fix it....

Now can we get back to that Erks-Fuqua race....can't we get that one reversed.....JK Ronnie...

CBS

[Jeff Foster]

Don I take major offence to that! I hide nothing, everyone gets there timeslip with all their info and they are the only one who knows if it wrong or not. If a racer sees a problem with his times and bring his time slips to me to show me I can do the the math and pull sheet to look at others.

[SC1317]

Jeff, I wouldn't be offended. Everyone would like to think that NHRA is doing everything possible to ensure a proper set up and forget that nothing is perfect. We work very hard to make our cars work their best and when something doesn't seem right we first blame ourselves and mechanics. To find out it is something with track set up (maybe) we feel robbed. By then it's to late, NHRA isn't going to give us re-runs if we figure it out after the fact.