August 2005 - WHO WON? The Evolution of Scoring and Timing Systems
At the end of a close race, spectators and scoring personnel often asked “Who won?”
The answer to this question may not be clear, especially if the stakes are extremely high and the finish extremely close. As technology is advancing at an unprecedented pace and drivers are investing more and more dollars to shave milliseconds off their lap times, racing has become more competitive than ever. This makes the job of timing and scoring personnel even more difficult since margins of victory are shrinking as the average top speed of karts are increasing.
The job of tracking and timing cars or karts in a race used to be quite exhausting, especially when there were numerous competitors or the race covered a long period of time. In the past, all timing and scoring was performed manually with a stopwatch and/or scorekeepers writing down the order of drivers passing the finish line. There were several disadvantages to this method of scorekeeping. The timer could lose track of competitors, times could be inaccurate, or officials could be biased towards specific drivers and be more generous on lap times. Drivers were not given lap times or positions until after a race and only if team members kept track with a stopwatch. Though inexpensive, this method was tedious and unreliable with a large margin for error. Manual timing and scoring are no longer options for many of the larger races since accurate race results are imperative.
IN THE BEGINNING
A primitive automatic timing and scoring system was introduced around the year 1910 — when car racing was beginning to come into full development and the call for proper timekeeping grew louder and louder. In the first Grand Prix of Brazil, a garden hose filled with water was laid across the finish line. As each car passed over the hose, the resulting pressure would move a piston which was connected to a relay. The relay activated the timekeeping equipment. This method, obviously, was unreliable due to factors such as air bubbles, fluctuations in temperature, and the slow pressure recovery in the hose. Also, there was no way to determine if more than one car passed the line simultaneously. The only way the system would work was if one driver was far ahead of the rest of the field and crossed the finish line by himself. This scenario was unlikely in extremely competitive races where the margin of victory was in the milliseconds.
AND THEN…
The next step in the evolution of timing and scoring was the use of photocells in races. A beam of light would track the passing time of the driver in the first position. Although extremely accurate and reliable, this method could only indicate when a driver passed through the beam. It could not identify the driver and if more than one driver passed the beam at the same time in a close finish, it could not determine who was the winner. In a sense, this method was just an electronic version of the hose-method described earlier.
AND…
Since it was desirable to obtain lap times for all competitors and not just the leader, a push button electronic system was developed. This system consisted of a keyboard with a button for each competitor. Every time a racer crossed the line, that driver’s corresponding button was pushed. Although it was more accurate than manual timing, disadvantages such as biased scorekeepers and missed passings were still present.
THE TRANSPONDER SYSTEM
In the early 1980s, the first transponder system was introduced. This was a momentous event in the history of timing and scoring, since now the entire process was automated and there would be no room for bias.
All automatic timing and scoring systems work in the same way. Each competitor is given a transponder or transmitter which identifies that competitor in a race. At the finish line, there is some method, whether it be magnetic induction or radio frequencies, to determine which transponder passed by and at what time.
Automatic timing and scoring systems have since become extremely sophisticated with systems that can accommodate an unlimited number of competitors in a race with accuracies in the thousandths of a second. Race results are available immediately with customized results that can print out individual lap times, qualifying times, point standings and more. The results can also be broadcast in real time on television, scoreboards and internet pages.
With the rapid evolution of technology in the racing world, new advanced timing systems are always being developed to keep page with our fast-changing society. As long as there is racing, there will always be a need for accurate, reliable timing and scoring systems so there will never be a doubt as to “Who won?”
Article courtesy of AMB i.t.
