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What if you could race any car against any car, and have the finish be really close at the end of any number of laps?

Mmmmmmm....
And it would be close enough for a photo finish?

My pick; Ford GT40 Mk IV vs. Ferrari 330/P4.

Let me know when you can set it up for me.........!

Allan

Cute! We have had races where there has been (lap record on my track is 7.2 secs) a 4 second a lap difference in the cars competing, and the finish was so close that the only way we could tell who finished first was by the time announcement from the computer! (car crossing the start/finish line first gets announced first) Yes, in fact, a photo finish!

Oh and Allan, I can set it up tonight...when do you fly in? :D

This is totally manageable. In fact we do it almost weekly. It takes a little math and a race management system with fuel management or staggered start.
We can have cars that are a second a lap (11 sec laps) or more different finish within inches of each other when both drivers are consistent. Handicapping works....and it really does make the racing more fun for everyone.

ok, I'll bite, what if you could?

If you wanted to come up with some formula or handicap system that would guarantee close finishes that would be very difficult to achieve, especially if you were racing cars without traction magnets. Not only the cars but the drivers would have to be taken into account. We do an IROC style race every week using supplied cars that stay with their lanes while just the drivers rotate. Often many of the drivers end up on the same lap and the entire field is within two laps, but photo finishes have been very rare. We run our races with lane rotations and use Trackmate to determine the finishing order. Since we run timed heats Trackmate knows how many laps each driver has but it does not always break ties correctly because it does not know the finishing positions of the cars. I believe that Trackmate breaks ties based on the car that had the fastest lap time on the previous lap. Since we can't count on ties being broken correctly we always mark where the cars have stopped when they have finished their last heat. If there is room next to the track we just park the cars, otherwise we use marked clothes pins. During one race the cars all seemed to be stopping in the same place and when the race was over there were about six cars in a pile, we were hoping that at least some of them did not have the same number of laps, but it turned out that they were all tied and we had to go with the finishing order that was determined by Trackmate.

There is a very smart person that I race with occasionally that has figured it all out! It is a very ingenious program (that includes some hardware) that allows each driver to estimate their lap time (after 5 laps practice), program it into the computer, and the computer will rank the position of that person on the track. For example, I have divided my track (75') into 18 equal spaces...I program the computer as to how many spaces there are, and how many laps the race will be. The computer then tells every driver (after they have put in their estimated lap time from their driver station (that's the hardware part)) where their position is on the track. If you go faster than the time you estimated, the computer cuts the power to your lane, and in my case, laughs loudly at the fact you broke out! If nobody comes out, or breaks out, and everyone stays close to their estimated time, the finishes are extremely close. Every driver can set their times from the driver station they are at (entered directly into the computer), and also reset when they break out and power is cut. To make the racing even closer, I've doubled the number of sections to 36. This allows a more refined bracket...and the computer calculates everything for us! This means anyone, from an absolute beginner, to a seasoned veteran can race together and the beginner will still have a chance to win. You can race your best handling, but slowest car against my fastest car, and still win! You can enter any number of track spaces, and any number of laps to race, and the computer will calculate everything accordingly! It's really made the racing a lot more fun for everyone! Fun is good!

fotodoug - as a confirmed nerd with computer programming experience, I'd love to get connected with the hardware & software guy you mentioned. On the hardware side I'd like to build section timing into my system, and on the software side to have the program calculate higher fuel consumption rates for faster cars so the have to pit sooner and more often.

I also have something you might be interested in that I have no use for - an old school x-ray or slide viewing box. When the psychology department I used to teach in was moving to a new building 2 things like this were tossed out, so I grabbed them. One's for my sister-in-law who's an artist and will likely mutilate Barbie or Ken dolls to display in it, but the other one is yours for free if you want it. I don't think I have the frosted glass for it, but it has a square shaped neon bulb inside that when paired with the bottom of a meat tray might help you produce even more great photos. It's not exactly like this but you get the general idea. I can take a picture of it and PM it to you.


Lastly, back to close racing - one thing that helps is having shorter races. When racing with my grandson on the oval we'd run multiple 8 lap heat races leading up to a 15 or 20 lap feature. If a car crashed it would restart behind the other car and the remaining laps would be run from there, but any sort of major lead would be wiped out. If a car crashed 3 times in a race it automatically lost - on to the next race. Same thing if the trailing car crashed during the last half of the last lap (no crashing on purpose to delay the inevitable). A full 'event' for us with a single class of cars consisted of 13 individual 2-car races with winners advancing to the next round. We'd both end up winning several times and many times the cars would be nearly side by side at the checkered flag. On the way to finding out which car was the big winner for the night we had a lot of close racing and fun.

Slothead