At the start of the race, the cameras focus on the start light which, when illuminated by the Starting Official, provides a common timing synchronization reference mark on the race videos. There is a third, backup camera running in case a primary camera fails or becomes obscured by over-excited race fans. The general procedures are the same for qualifying laps and races, except that one camera is used to time qualifying laps.
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| The Timing Booth |
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| Home Pylon |
The timing crew starts the cameras before the start of the each race, and watches for the anticipated signal from the Starting Judge's signal light. When the signal is flashed, they yell "MARK!" and the excitement begins! The cameras display each frame of the recorded video, with time values to the nearest 1/60th of a second (see
Television Formats below). Each camera crew notes the approximate starting time that they observed on the camera. Every time a aircraft passes home pylon, it is verbally and visually recorded on the tape, to document the race positions of the racers for each lap. Each camera crew also notes the approximate finish time. After the race, the video from each camera is independently reviewed by the timing judges, using the approximate times to position the tapes and identify the precise frames showing the start of the race and the finish for each plane. Lapped aircraft receive finish times, with the actual laps flown used to compute their slower speeds. If required, individual lap times can be retrieved from the tapes.
After each camera crew records the start and finish time marks for each racer, the results are input into special software developed exclusively for the Reno Air Race Association. This program checks the independently recorded results from the two cameras for discrepencies between the two teams. If there is a difference, as little as 1/30th of a second, for any aircraft, the data is rejected and the videos of both cameras are independently reviewed to resolve the difference. If the time discrepancy cannot be resolved from the review of the tapes, the third camera is called in to resolve the descrepency of the observed values.
Once the times are established for each racer, it is a simple matter to convert the times into speeds using the formula: Speed (mph) = Distance Flown (miles) / Time (hours).
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| The Timing Cameras |
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| Joe Lacey extracts time values for racers |
It is not possible to identify the aircraft on the video. During filming, "spotters" call out the race numbers as the aircraft pass home pylon. The audio is recorded on the video tapes and "recorders" write them down. Race numbers are recorded for each lap to identify aircraft being lapped. After the winner crosses the finish line, the race is over for each aircraft as it passes home pylon. Thus, lapped aircraft fly fewer laps than the winner.
As the timers step the tape, they see two images per frame, the fields described in the
Television Formats sidebar, each representing roughly 1/60 of a second. Unlimited aircraft, at 500 mph, can travel over twelve feet in that time, so timers interpolate tenths of fields to further refine the times.
After recording the camera start times, the timers fast-forward the tapes to the end of the race. For each racer, they step the tapes to get the exact camera times that the nose of the aircraft crosses the finish line. The difference between the starting and ending camera times yields the elapsed time and, with the length of the course and the number of laps flown, the speed for each aircraft.
History of the Evolving Timing Technology
From the first races until 2003, the races were timed with stop watches and skilled pairs of eyeballs. Timers sat on a platform next to home pylon built by Vic Hollingsworth. (The white platform is visible to the left of home pylon in the image above.) Several timers clocked each race. Vic correlated the times and phoned the results to Debbie Giese in the Scoring Office. Debbie calculated speeds, computed penalties, and published the race reports.
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| Sandy Goldstein |
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| 2006 Excel Timing Form |
Tom Gribbin and Joe Lacey collaborated to modernize the timing. Many sports use laser gates to start and stop clocks, to record speeds of athletes or vehicles. However, aircraft racing on a three-dimensional course doesn't lend itself to this timing method. Cars, boats and athletes can break a laser line to start and stop a clock, while aircraft can cross a line at any altitude, rarely tripping a laser beam. Video recording solved the problem of recording aircraft as they cross a vertical plane representing the start/finish line of a race. Experts in the field of high-speed imagery demonstrated their ability to record racing aircraft traveling at speeds approaching 500 mph!
In September, 2003, an experimental team gathered to videotape and time the races. The system proved its worth that year. The video timing was accurate, easily compiled, and reviewable if questions arose. Just like the evolution of the instant replay systems used in many sports, Air Racing had come of age. At this early stage of video timing, spreadsheets were used to convert times to speeds. The spreadsheets were printed and faxed to Debbie at the Scoring Office. The timing values were reviewed and re-typed for official posting. All of this took too much time and did not lend itself well for the real-time data demands that modern race fans demand and deserve!
Sam Coleman, a veteran of the timing team, developed the software used by the timing and scoring teams. The software that Sam developed, for the exclusive use by the Reno Air Race Association, delivers the timing data directly to the Scoring Judge, correlates speed, penalties and other vital statistics and posts the data on the official web site for real-time updates to all of the racers and race fans!
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Race Data
(click on any image to enlarge) |
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| Racer / Pilot Data |
Debbie runs the same program, adding comments and penalties assessed by the Contest Committee, and works with the class representatives to correct errors and document anomalies in the race. Debbie then declares the results official and publishes the reports. The official reports replace the earlier reports on the web site.
Some of the windows supported by the program are described in the following paragraphs. Timers enter data about the races and the racers before race week. The race-data window lets them list and edit race schedules, and includes the details of the previous qualifying and race records. This data, modified if records are broken, appears on various reports.
Similarly, the racer-data window allows timers to enter registration data for each aircraft. The record for Race 17 is highlighted in the example, allowing timers to edit the data for "Parrothead". It lists the primary pilot, alternate pilots, and any available qualifying data. (The qualifying data is displayed here for convenience, but is not entered here, as explained below.) Various reports can be created from this page.
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| Main Window |
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| Speed Calculator |
During race week, the main window allows the user to select qualifying or race windows for any of the race classes. It also contains buttons to send the data and report files to Scoring and to the web, and to create or print reports as records are broken. The "Speed Calculator" button allows timers to compute speeds to answer special questions, based on camera times or manually-computed time intervals. The example shows that an aircraft completing the Unlimited Breitling Gold race in exactly eight minutes will have flown an average speed of 502.434 mph.
Qualifying
During qualifying periods, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday morning of race week, pilots on the course ask, by radio, to be timed for one or two qualifying laps. Timers enter the starting and ending camera times into the qualifying window.
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| Qualifying Window |
The qualifying example shows that Dave Morss, in Race 25, made two qualifying runs. His second attempt is detailed on the screen for editing. When Race 25 passed home pylon to begin the run, the camera time was zero hours, 32 minutes, forty two seconds, and 19 frames. The camera operator noted that it was the first image of frame 19 (field "a"), and estimated that the actual start time was two tenths of a field later. The camera times at the end of each lap are also shown. Dave cut no pylons during either lap and was not disqualified. (A pylon cut normally disqualifies a lap. If a racer has only one timed qualifying lap, with pylon cuts, timers can check "Apply Penalty" to add a penalty to the time and allow the aircraft to qualify. The wall-clock time of each attempt is recorded, important when records are broken.
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| Unlimited Qualifier Report |
The example shows the elapsed time for each lap, and the corresponding speeds. The fastest of the three qualifying laps, 337.568 mph, is used for Race 25's qualifying speed. Timers can also add comments for each lap, to detail pylon cuts or explain other anomalies.
During qualifying periods, one camera is kept ready at all times, while the other can be off-line to process times for previous qualifying runs.
This window also allows the user to create the full qualification report for the unlimited class, a report of the qualifying laps flown that day, and detailed reports for Race 25 and for Mr. Morss.
Racing
During race days, Debbie creates race "pairings", listing who will compete in each race. The contestants for the initial races are determined by their qualifying times. Subsequent contestants are based on prior race results. Each class defines its own "progression" rules to determine how races are populated. During the 2010 races, the software will recommend pairings for each race. The process, however, cannot be completely automated: In some classes, pilots pick their own starting positions within a race. If an aircraft breaks down and is repaired, there are
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| Pairing Window |
special rules to allow it to enter subsequent races. The individual classes have discretion to fill races. To handle these real-world situations, Debbie will override the automated pairings.
The example shows the pairing window for the 2009 Unlimited Breitling Gold race. At the bottom, Debbie can display qualifying data, any prior race or, in the example, the results of the races in the previous heat. She can add any entry to the race by clicking on its entry. Entries with a "+" by the pilot's name have alternate pilots. If an alternate pilot is scheduled to fly the aircraft in this race, Debbie can change the pilot with the pull-down menu. To the left is a column of pull-down commands, allowing Debbie to delete entries, promote or demote them, etc. She can also create the pairing report from this window. Pairing reports are widely distributed on paper and put on the web site.
Races are timed as described above. The camera values are entered into the program on the result window. The racers from the pairing record carry forward to the result window. (If a last-minute substitution is made, and a racer does not appear on the result window, the user can modify the pairing for that race, which corrects the pairing report and includes the substitute on the result window.)
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| Race Result Window |
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| Breitling Gold Results |
The wall-clock starting time is recorded. The start times from both cameras, which apply to all racers, are entered on the left of the window. Then, each racer is selected, in turn, so the user can enter the timing information for that racer, including the ending camera times. The program computes the elapsed time for both cameras and compares the values. (In the example, the times from the two cameras match exactly.) The times are averaged to show the final time, in this case 8 minutes and 10.357 seconds. If the difference between the cameras exceeds 30 milliseconds, the program highlights the discrepancy, usually caused by a data-entry error. If this is not the case, the camera crews go back to the tape to check the camera values.
The number of laps flown and the pylon cuts are recorded for each racer. The "Set Defaults" button sets the laps flown to the number of laps in the race and clears the pylon cuts, since this is typical. In the example, racers 13 and 14 were lapped, so the record shows that they flew seven laps in this eight-lap race. Race 5 had mechanical problems and pulled out of the race after 5 laps, so the record shows "did not finish".
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| Report Web Page |
Participants have one hour after the unofficial reports are published to protest the results. Debbie can click "Start One-Hour Timer" to cause a message to pop up one hour later. If no protests have been filed, she can mark the race official.
The timers and Debbie can add comments for each racer to, for example, detail pylon-cut information or other anomalies. They can also include comments about the race in general, to describe the weather, explain why a race was cancelled or delayed, etc.
A variety of reports are produced during race days. The reports are generated as "html" files, the language of the web. The program converts the files to the "pdf" format, which can be opened with Adobe's Acrobat Reader. Both the html and pdf report files are sent to the report web site by the program using the "ftp" protocol. The program also creates the report web pages, based on which reports exist, and sends those files to the same web site. This makes the formatted reports available to everyone seconds after they are produced, and typically less than 30 minutes after the last aircraft passes home pylon. For qualifying attempts, reports are sometimes on the web before the qualifying aircraft lands.
Comments, corrections, questions, and suggestions are always welcome. Please use this
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