2014 Race Report

Discussions on race preparation, race management, sound effects, and other race related software. This is only for software provided by our sponsor, GrandPrix Software Central.
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kyoo
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2014 Race Report

Post by kyoo »

Just a quick note.. Thanks to some excellent software support, we had a new build of the software sent to us just 12 hours before our race start time.. working the midnight oil..

This year's race was NEARLY flawless.. Every heat was captured by RaceReplay V3.. RaceReplay never locked up. I compiled a quick video of all of our heats.. In case anyone is interested, here is the link: http://youtu.be/yByoR3fvwvc.

Unlike RRv2 and GPRMv12, race replay didn't crash at all this year!

I did run into two different issues, however. On 3 or 4 occasions, a heat was simply not captured.. the Timer was set (yellow), the start gate was pulled, the cars finished, but GPRM and thusly RaceReplay did nothing.. I just left things alone and we put the same cars back up at the start gate after we reset the start gate, and ran it again.. then everything registered just fine.. I can't point fingers at the cause of the issue; but I can say that it seemed to happen around the same time I started getting antsy and clicking the "next heat" button while the results were still showing from the previous heat (but after racereplay did its thing).. it didn't happen each time I did that.. nor am I sure it only happened after I manually advanced the heats.. but I can say for sure that once I stopped tinkering w/ that button, the problem didn't happen again throughout the remainder of the race events.. In case it isn't obvious, we had the "auto heat advance" feature activated.. Another note on this: I imagine my race replay recordings probably captured these mishaps on tape.. if I dig through my extra long videos, I bet I'd find those heats that ran twice in a row on the same recording.. Not sure what information can be gleamed from that, though.. Let me know if you're interested in seeing those clips.

The other issue was human error.. I forgot to click "passed" on one of the kids that was actually present during the registration process... he got left out of Round 1.. which was a shame.. I could not figure out how to do a "late add" without totally cancelling out my schedule and starting over.. I'm sure this has been discussed before.. unfortunately, the school's guest wifi blocked derbytalk.com.. maybe they thought it was dirtytalk.com or something.. Thus, I couldn't look up a way to fix my issue mid-race.. I ended up just throwing that kid in the finals as an automatic seed.. and I think he ran his car in place of his sibling's during round one.. What is the best way to handle that situation, afterall?

Thanks again!
BallBoy
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Re: 2014 Race Report

Post by BallBoy »

kyoo wrote:I could not figure out how to do a "late add" without totally cancelling out my schedule and starting over.. I'm sure this has been discussed before.. unfortunately, the school's guest wifi blocked derbytalk.com.. maybe they thought it was dirtytalk.com or something.. Thus, I couldn't look up a way to fix my issue mid-race.. I ended up just throwing that kid in the finals as an automatic seed.. and I think he ran his car in place of his sibling's during round one.. What is the best way to handle that situation, afterall?
GPRM allows you to manually heats to an existing schedule. I have used this on a couple of occasions when a racer shows up late and race organizers want him to still race and compete. I manually add the heats so that the racer goes down the track the same number of times and in different lanes, just as the other racers did. All the empty lanes get 'byes'. I think it's pretty boring to watch a car go down the track 4, 6 or 8 times all by itself, so I have all the racers line up and fill the empty lanes for each of the extra heats. This way the racer gets to race against his peers, although he is the only one being scored.
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gpraceman
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Re: 2014 Race Report

Post by gpraceman »

kyoo wrote:I did run into two different issues, however. On 3 or 4 occasions, a heat was simply not captured.. the Timer was set (yellow), the start gate was pulled, the cars finished, but GPRM and thusly RaceReplay did nothing.. I just left things alone and we put the same cars back up at the start gate after we reset the start gate, and ran it again.. then everything registered just fine.. I can't point fingers at the cause of the issue; but I can say that it seemed to happen around the same time I started getting antsy and clicking the "next heat" button while the results were still showing from the previous heat (but after racereplay did its thing).. it didn't happen each time I did that.. nor am I sure it only happened after I manually advanced the heats.. but I can say for sure that once I stopped tinkering w/ that button, the problem didn't happen again throughout the remainder of the race events..
I don't think that would be the issue. GPRM doesn't not do any prompting to RR until the Ready Timer button is activated or the gate drops, depending on if the timer tells the software that the gate has dropped or not. I can see that you would have an issue with heats where you had cars not finishing. If your scout was not flagging the sensors at the end of the track (or you reset the start gate) after all other cars finished, then I can see RR not replaying the cars that did finish. RR only plays the set number of seconds from the end of the video clip.
kyoo wrote:The other issue was human error.. I forgot to click "passed" on one of the kids that was actually present during the registration process... he got left out of Round 1.. which was a shame.. I could not figure out how to do a "late add" without totally cancelling out my schedule and starting over.. I'm sure this has been discussed before.. unfortunately, the school's guest wifi blocked derbytalk.com.. maybe they thought it was dirtytalk.com or something.. Thus, I couldn't look up a way to fix my issue mid-race.. I ended up just throwing that kid in the finals as an automatic seed.. and I think he ran his car in place of his sibling's during round one.. What is the best way to handle that situation, afterall?
There is a section in the software's help file that covers that (Race Day\Overcoming Murphy's Law). You pass the racer and then manually add heats onto the end of the schedule for that racer.
Randy Lisano
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Awana Grand Prix and Pinewood Derby racing - Where a child, an adult and a small block of wood combine for a lot of fun and memories.
kyoo
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Re: 2014 Race Report

Post by kyoo »

It wasn't that RR wasn't showing the replay for those 3-4 heats that I mentioned... It was that GPRM wasn't registering that it even happened..

I set the timer to ready (yellow).. they pulled the gate, the cars flew through the finish, and nothing happened.. no scores.. no replay.. nada.. We picked the cars up, put them back at the gate after closing it again, and the timer was still ready and yellow.. I simply had them pull the start gate again and we watched the cars do there thing.. the second time was always the charm.. scores registered, replay played..

really odd..
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gpraceman
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Re: 2014 Race Report

Post by gpraceman »

That is very peculiar. GPRM will just sit and wait until the timer sends the results. That should be once all cars have finished, you hit the Escape key or close the start gate (if using the mechanical start switch).
Randy Lisano
Romans 5:8

Awana Grand Prix and Pinewood Derby racing - Where a child, an adult and a small block of wood combine for a lot of fun and memories.
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