BrokeAss

Anyone care to share their suggestions for timing mandatory pit stops?

One of the most challenging things about volunteering for last years 48 Hours Timing and Scoring was timing the mandatory 5 minute pit stop during the enduro.

Juan Lopez

Terry,

You mean timing it as an official of the race (I assume)?

BrokeAss

Yes, as part of the official timing and scoring crew. (don't want anyone to mistake me for an ACTUAL PCA National T&S official!) PCA National T&S scores the race at the start/finish line with the computers just like any other race. They enlist the help of the local region to time the enduro pit stops.

At Sebring there will be a 90 minute enduro with a mandatory 5 minute pit stop. I'm looking for recommendations on how to make sure everyone pits, and to make sure they don't "short-pit" the 5 minutes.

Trying to scribble down car numbers and times at pit in and pit out is just plain silly! What's the "right way" to do it?

Bill L Seifert

The last PCA Enduro I did was a long time ago, but I think they had a good way to time it. They had a clock at pit in, and another at pit out, they were coordinated with each other, that way competitors could check themselves, and a pit worker could sit by pit in, and another at pit out, and write times down for each car, then compare notes. I thought it worked neat, and I knew exactly where I stood. The SCCA does it different, they have several pit marshalls that walk the pit and check from wheel stop to wheel start, but I can sure see how that can get messed up, and it takes several people. The two clubs had different rules, the PCA back then (2000) required 5 min in the pits, and the last SCCA Enduro I did, required you to be stopped for 5 minutes.

Kinda confusing, hope it helps,

Bill Seifert

1987 944S Race Car

BrokeAss

While labor intensive that does work - that is until a yellow flag comes out and the ENTIRE field pits at once! ...then your screwed!

The trouble with that method is it takes waaaay too long to "certify" the results of the race. For each competitor you have to subtract pit in time from pit out time. I don't know about you, but I have a hell of time calculating 1:03:52 minus 0:57:03 in my head quickly. My brain just isn't wired for elapsed time calculations.

What happens when your pit in guys miss a car - or they can't read the numbers because three cars come through pit in at the same time. ...or worse they get dyslexic and write down the WRONG car number!

There's got to be a better way!

Juan Lopez

Terry, check with HSR (I think their timing is done by Joni Lefler (spelling) Phillips). I belive they do it with the timing system/transpoders as I have never seen anyone taking notes on it. Perhaps they do it on a stealthy way.....

944Ecology

At the Watkins Glen club race enduro, we treat the five minute mandatory pit stop just the way that you would treat a TSD rally leg of exactly five minutes. We use synchronized watches (to the 100th of a second) and have a crew of three at the entrance to the pits (marked with cones) and a crew of three at the exit (also marked with cones).

Each crew has a spotter (to identify the car and the time), a scribe (to write the information down on a spreadsheet) and a radio man (to relay the information when it is quiet enough to be heard).

In addition, the National T&S people keep an eye on who among the front runners has not had a lap that is at least five minutes longer than their average laptime.

Towards the end of the race, we get a snapshot of the field from T&S as to who the front runners are, and make sure that all of the top ten or so have done their stop.

This has worked successfully for four Watkins Glen events and three Mosport events without problem.

If you would like copies of the forms that we use for training the volunteers and doing calculations, pm me.

(Now, if you're wondering about the best way for a driver to ensure that he successfully does his five minute stop without too much overage, my suggestion would be to mount a stopwatch on the dash for the sole purpose of timing the five minutes, starting it when crossing the entrance to the pits and timing the crossing of the exit to as close as five minutes as possible.

Some of the more organized teams consistently have made pit stops within a couple of seconds of the five minute minimum.)

gb

Professor Helmüt Tester

If you have a pit-lane speed limit, time a 'at the limit' roll the entire length of pit lane. Add 5 minutes to that. Save that number.

If you're using AMB, call up a 'Time Card' report on each car at the end of the race and check to see if they've got at least one lap longer than the total you came up with, above. T&S should have indicated 'flag status' to the AMB computers, so that you'll be able to tell which laps were FCY and which were green, so you don't confuse a 'pit stop lap' with a 'FCY lap'...or you can just keep a manual log of FCY, then compare to the 'passings/running times' log on the AMB. I think there may be a function in Orbitz that you can configure to automatically report 'slowest lap'...just like it reports 'fast lap'...wouldn't that be cool if it did ??? Of course, you have to have upgraded to Orbitz.

Edit - oh yeah...forgot this - IME, many tracks have separate transponder loops for 'trackside' and 'pit lane'. I know the Glen does (actually, WGI has two in series on 'trackside', and the pit-wall one doesn't work for ****. Lesson: Don't dive to pit wall during qualifying if you're cutting a hot one). The pit lane loop should automatically flag "pit" to the computer, but even if it doesn't, the AMB crew can manually flag cars 'in pit' as they cross the line at S/F, and that comment should appear on the time card.

It's actually a lot easier than it sounds. Yes, somebody has to check the time card for each entry, post race, but it's a whole lot easier (and safer) than having an army of 'pit stop timers' wandering around pit lane.

PHT
(you have to know how T&S works, if you're going to scam T&S...)

NetManiac

I helped out as a pit marshal for the POC's Tribute to Le Mans last year. We did it similar to the way Bill decribed the SCCA enduro. We had enough volunteers to have a pit marshal for every one or two pit boxes. We would time the put AND make sure the driver and crew did everything they way they were supposed to (i.e. fuelled the car correctly, changed drivers, etc). I think it worked out OK, but I think a more automated method with transponders would work better, if it's available.

BrokeAss

Yup, that's probably the "right" way to do it. Unfortunately Sebring doesn't have a seperate loop dug into pit lane. (Sebring is always referred to as historic for a reason!)

Last year the enduro was the last event of the weekend. Many of our volunteers had already left by the time the enduro started and we got caught short-handed.

I'm hoping to find a less volunteer-intensive way to time it.

Mike in Chi

"(you have to know how T&S works, if you're going to scam T&S...)"

Mark in Baltimore

An easier way may be to have a $10 digital timer in each car that is set for a five minute mark. As soon as the driver hits the pit-in mark, the countdown timer is activated. For a five minute stop, the driver should be nearly ready to go at the 45 second tally, depending on where the pit is in relation to pit-out.

If you splurge for another timer, you can countdown your 30 minute sprint or 90 minute enduro.

PMS993

Mark;

There are numerous "egg timers" on the market that have in some cases, three different timers on the one devise. Try your grocery store or Walmart.

M758

Well really all you need to do is check car numbers as they came in. Yes you may miss a number, but in realaity you don't need all 100% accuracy. You just need enough to convince all the drivers that they will be checked. The enduro that I have done are 5 min +/- some unkown fudge factor. This factor is never published, but is usally good enough. If you have problem you can look at the passings and determine if a car ran a lap that was 5:00 longer (+ est entry & exit time) than most laps.

What you really want to do is not catch the guy that is 5 seconds fast, but the one that is 1-2 minutes fast. Hey it is "Club" racing after all.