Question for Jeff Foster and Dave Kommel

[Jody Lang]

[QUOTE=Michael Beard;370036]If you step through frame by frame on the Mason incident video you can clearly see the camera flashes, and they do not coincide with the red light coming on. The red light comes on *after* the camera flashes, and the the pre-stage and stage bulbs go out AFTER the red light comes on.

If you're going frame by frame wouldn't the red light have to come on after the camera flash? I wouldn't expect it to come on during the flash.

[Rory McNeil]

Originally Posted by FrankChastain

Look at the O'Reilly sign at the right hand top corner on the sign. Then looking at the passenger side of the car about where the parking light is. According to this the car hasn't moved in any of the four pictures...Just an observation....

Good point. The camera is stationary, on the ground, so any movement of DeFranks car should be obvious.

[Michael Beard]

If you're going frame by frame wouldn't the red light have to come on after the camera flash? I wouldn't expect it to come on during the flash.

Step through the Mason video. The red light comes on 8 frames after the first flash, and 5 frames after the second flash. That's not just "after", that's a *significant* delay. Also, it's been noted that each frame represents a fair amount of time. The timing system is dealing in thousandths of a second, so I would imagine that it IF the flash was the culprit, it is very possible that its results could appear in the same frame, if not the very next frame. 5 frames? Don't think so. Again, it also appears that there aren't any cameras involved in Brand's incident. Camera flashes may just be a coincidence.

None of it explains why the red light comes on BEFORE the pre-stage and stage lights go out in each instance.

A poster on DRR mentioned they had this problem frequently at their home track:

At my home track, this very same issue kept showing up in the right hand lane, DURING eliminations only. The track at first blamed it on the driver rolling forwards or backwards out of the beams. Then looked for cobwebs, ants, sun reflection etc. Then after much logical, thoughtful incise and concise gentlemanly discussions, accompanied by arm waving, four letter words, threats of violence, promises to never set foot on the grounds again, and other civilized, illegal actions, somehow an answer was found. it was discovered this only happened during eliminations, only in the right lane, it was random, not a common occurence. A lady that used to run the compu-link system for the track, suggested that they turn OFF auto start during eliminations, and see if the problem went away. IT DID!!

We had a different issue at the bracket finals at Rockingham a couple of years ago. We had numerous errant runs. I was announcing and noted the anomolies before racers even got to the tower to complain. We stopped and replaced one or more photocells on the starting line (that had just been replaced a week or two before). Had problems with the Stage beam hanging so bad it wouldn't go out at all. We turned off Stagelock, and had no more problems. Weird things happen. Maybe we think they shouldn't happen, and we maybe we think the solutions shouldn't be the solutions. Doesn't change the facts.

The most bizarre thing I've ever seen is having R/T's, all incremental times and mph matching other timeslips and making sense, but having the finish ET being off by about two tenths of a second, and the MOV likewise showing about two tenths despite the cars being separated by thousandths. It happened multiple times at the same event, with different cars. How or why it happened, I have no idea, but the only plausible explanation I could come up with was that somehow the finish line sensor "missed" the front wheel, and was triggered by the back tires. A car length was roughly the amount of ET that was "missing".

[Toby Lang]

Like I said, I don't know much about external flashes. Cameras also use infrared for autofocusing. The DeFrank red light could be a case of the camera autofocusing before taking the photo. I don't know if it would take that long to fire an external flash.

As for the Mason red light, there are also three other photographers on that side of the rail. Maybe one of their cameras caused it by autofocusing.

It looks the photographer has to be in the right spot and take the picture at the right time for this to happen. It sure looks like there is some infrared coming from somewhere that is causing this. There definitely needs to be some testing to see what is going on so it doesn't happen again. They need to to get all the photographers together at some point during an event and have them take pictures at different angles to see if they can consistently cause this. Maybe there needs to be a car in the beams for it to happen. If they can't get it to happen then it must be the timing equipment.

As for the Brand red light, the footage doesn't show if there is a photographer on the rail or not. It could be caused by autofocusing as well.

[Dave Kommel]

Modern DSLR's do not use infared for focusing.

[Toby Lang]

Originally Posted by Dave Kommel

Modern DSLR's do not use infared for focusing.

Do all photographers at the track use modern DSLRs?

And what about external flashes? How long of a delay is there after pressing the shutter and the flashes going off? Is this delay adjustable?

It's possible to have the internal flash off and still be sending a signal to the external flashes, right?

[Jody Lang]

Does anyone know if this has happened in the super gas/comp classes?

[Dave Kommel]

Originally Posted by Toby Lang

Do all photographers at the track use modern DSLRs?

And what about external flashes? How long of a delay is there after pressing the shutter and the flashes going off? Is this delay adjustable?

It's possible to have the internal flash off and still be sending a signal to the external flashes, right?

99% are using modern DSLR's. You might have friends and crew shooting with point and shoot cameras that use infrared focusing.

When you talk about external flash, I assume you actually mean remote flash. The on-camera flash units we use do have infrared, but it only functions to help the camera focus in very low light situations. Auto-focus is based on contrast and when there is not enough light for the camera to discern contrast, it uses the flash to help it focus. In the Dan Mason situation (daylight), there should not be any infrared at all, so if the photographer (possibly me) caused the redlight, it had to be flash and not infrared. Also, if the flash is turned off, there is no infrared in any situation.

Remote flashes are triggered by a cable, a radio slave unit or they can be triggered by the flash of the on-camera flash. No infrared is involved.

Shutter lag in modern DSLR's is very short, somewhere in the 200ms range and is not adjustable. The flash should fire instantaneously when the shutter opens.

[Adub464Q]

Originally Posted by Jody Lang

Does anyone know if this has happened in the super gas/comp classes?

I'm not sure about this exact situation, but at the Dallas national last year, the final two pairs of super comp in round 2 had to be rerun. This was because the tree dropped and everything was good. No incremental times/final times or rts. All zeroes and no winlight. Very strange deal.

I think we are putting a bit too much trust in the timing equipment itself. At brackets at the Texas Motorplex, there was a flaw in juniors. Every once in a while the dial ins would be correct but the difference in dial ins would be cut in half in the race. (I.e a 7.90-8.70 race, the 7.90 car's tree would drop just .4 seconds after 8.70 car's tree) this happened multiple times throughout the year. Just a weird nuance.

What happened to the "big news" that compulink was supposed to announce after the winters. I guess that's on hold for now. Also, weren't they testing a new beam for the starting line last year at Denver?

Austin Williams
464Q S/C STK

[Toby Lang]

There are remote flashes that are triggered by infrared.

Here's a quote I found on the web:

"Because the Nikon/Canon flashes are communicating with infrared light, (as opposed to radio signals) you will need to have your remote flashes in line-of-sight of the controller flash."


It's looking more and more like it's a glitch in the timing system, but as long as they have the photographers to blame, there's no need to fix it.

I think you photographers need to get together with Jeff, or whoever's in charge of the timing system, and do some testing and see if you can make it happen. If it is the flash, you should just be able to fire the flash right up next to the hole in the box and it should trigger the sensor.

If you guys are able to do some testing I hope you will share the results here.