Dave,
I loved reading how your club adapted to using Rob Gregg's AutoXT/S software.
It sounds identical to the way we adapted to using the software through our
first season with it in 1999. After much skepticism at first, I cannot
remember a complaint about our clubs T&S system lately. The only time we have
been down in almost two years is to run out replacement lights after being
run over by errant cars! New time sheets are posted after every run group
(about 8 cars), times are announced after every run (speaker at the finish
for the driver) and now with the network version a "Ticker" PC will be on
through the event at registration to see your class results real time. Also
we have been told that we are one of the few clubs that post the results and
yearly points to the website before most of the drivers get home! It is easy
because all reports are available at the touch of a key after the last car
finishes!
As far as training goes it is no harder to train a person on the PC than it
was to train them on the old PC-less timers. The only difference is you type
it instead of write it. Also with very little trouble an event can continue
with the timer or even some stop watches and a pencil if ever a serious
problem occurred. (In almost two years we have not had ONE problem with the
software or any of the PC's but we always have a backup plan as the show must
go on :)
The new network system is up and running at my house and will be put to the
test at our Nationals warm up on Sept. 2 and 3. We are waiting from Gregg to
fix a minor glitch in the ticker program at this time, but as usual he is
working hard to fix it in time for the event. We have four PC's on our
network running on 10Base2/T PnP cards using Windows 95. One will be used as
the main timing PC, one the announcers PC and two at registration for
registering and running the ticker program (all four can register at the same
time if needed!!!). The announcer's PC has a great variety of stats that can
be pulled up at the touch of a key for keeping the hot competition we
traditionally have at GCAC informed. I'll be sure to post to the autocross
list how the system performed after the event.
John Taylor
Webmaster & the guy that used to be stuck with inputting all the results and
points@ <A HREF="http://www.gulfcoastautocrossers.com";>Gulfcoast Autocrossers
Ltd. Website</A>
In a message dated 8/22/00 3:24:26 PM Eastern Daylight Time, dave@wcsllc.net
writes:
> Keep in touch with how that works. It sounds cool and we might consider
> doing it that way!
>
> Thanks
>
> Dave Whitworth
> St. Louis Region SCCA
>
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