From The Chair
From The Chair: Why I Never Write Down Transponders
Once upon a time (that would be back when RC Scoring Pro was the one decent piece of race management software for RC), you were much better off squaring away all racer transponders in advance of a race. This could be an import from RC Signup or entering them from a signup sheet. There just wasn’t a decent way to efficiently add this information during warm-up.
Fast forward to today. The LiveTime Scoring software provides excellent tools for real-time transponder assignments… so much so that I never ask a racer for their transponder number. In fact, I refuse it when they offer! Why this approach?
I have always found transponder numbers error-prone. I must have a bit of dyslexia, along with maybe half of the racer population, because most people seem to write or type the wrong number a bunch of the time. Loading from RC Signup? It’s amazing how many people have that same transponder, 1234567. 1111111 is pretty popular, too. Ultimately, though, it’s as simple as this: it’s less time and effort to assign transponders during race warm-ups during round #1. You can do this so quickly that most people don’t even notice it, and with zero errors.
Let’s assume that you’re RDing a big race with many people who a) haven’t raced on your system and b) you don’t know personally. When these things aren’t true, picking up missing transponders in real time is dead simple. You’ve got 10 or 12 people in each race, and most of them do not have correct transponder assignments in your system.
The single most important tool LiveTime offers is the list of names associated with a transponder that it has picked up, but who are not listed in the current race for the current class. If you don’t already know about this, here’s what happens. As racers cross the loop for the first time, transponders are picked up by the system. If your software already has this number assigned to a car in this race, that racer is checked in… their color changes, “line crossing” sound plays, and you’ll never see this transponder number. If the system doesn’t know which car this transponder belongs to, a different sound plays and a new line appears at the bottom of the race screen. On this line, you’ll find the 7-digit transponder number, a driver name if the transponder has previously been used at THIS track by one person, a list of racers who have EVER checked in on LiveTime with this number anywhere (along with the track at which that happened), and buttons that allow you to handle this event.
Your first step is to look at the people who have used this transponder. Do any of these names match a driver that’s in this race? If so, and that’s 80% of the time, you can assume that the transponder belongs to that driver. Assign it by dragging the number from the row that appeared and dropping it on the name of the racer in the race screen. They will then be checked in, and future crosses will make the normal sound. You might also check to see if the transponder lists someone with the LAST NAME of a racer in the race. Lots of father/son racers trade transponders incessantly, for some reason.
It may also be possible, depending on the track configuration, to watch the car cross the loop and/or see which driver is watching that car, and identify the correct assignment this way. If you know the racers, observing who is at the rail but not checked in will also do it, if you can eliminate down to a single person. It can be useful to ask “is John Thomas on the stand” (and depending on your view, something like “…if yes step back”). Use whatever tricks you have available to make assignments.
In an efficient program – which is or surely will be the topic of another post – all of the entries in this race will be on the track promptly. If the above process gets down to just one person who hasn’t checked in AND one transponder not assigned, you can safely guess that these two things relate to each other and drop one on the other. However, if you don’t get there and have two or more unknowns and/or two or more racers without transponders, you’ll move to a traditional hot check-in.
Call everyone to a location just before the loop. On an oval, that’s typically turns 3 and 4, etc. As you tell them to stop there, also tell the first driver without a transponder to come across the loop. You’ll want to say this several times, like: “Drivers, stop in turn 4. John Smith come across. Everyone else stop in 4. Only John Smith. Just John Smith to cross.” If you don’t repeat it like this, someone will ignore you. Watch the cars… with a little experience, you can detect the guy that STILL ignores you. Once you see everyone holding up except one car, go ahead and call the second driver without a transponder, watch the first guy cross, and drop his transponder onto his name. Repeat. Each time, call the next guy as soon as you see only the current racer moving toward the loop. With say six unknown drivers on a big offroad track, you can still complete this process in under a minute. And you will almost never have six unknowns with the LiveTime list of prior associations.
It’s certainly possible to get yourself in trouble. A great example is a father/son combo who are both in one race, and have a transponder issue. An unknown transponder comes across and you find Dad’s name in the LiveTime list and drop it on his race entry to make the assignment. Then, ANOTHER transponder comes across and here’s Dad’s name again! One of these is Junior, but you don’t know which one. In the traditional hot check-in, call Dad across first. If Dad clicks, you’re good there. If the unknown transponder comes up, you’ve assigned the wrong one, so drop this one on Dad’s entry. This action will remove the first assignment. Next, call Junior across and assign his transponder. Basic rule: always call the mis-assigned car across first, because making the proper assignment frees the wrongly-assigned transponder. If you call the unknown car first, Dad clicks… you then need to right click and “remove transponder”, get Junior to come across again, and assign to Junior. Then you still need Dad to cross. This is much less efficient.
Another problem that might occur is self-induced. While RDs are generally the most perfect of people, it’s possible that you meant to add someone to a race, told them which race they’d be in, but forgot to actually put them there. They dutifully show up… with an unknown transponder for a driver that the system doesn’t think is in this race. You need to A) figure out who this is, B) get their transponder on your screen, C) change the transponder to the correct driver’s name, and D) “add to race”. The first step is the worst step, unless you recognize one of the names in the LiveTime list.
An efficient way to handle this issue, assuming you can hear people on the driver’s stand (which every track should be built to accomplish!), is this. Call people to your place before the loop. Handle any drivers in the race but without known transponders. Tell everyone to listen to this list of names, and read the names of everyone who is checked in. Ask “who’s not checked in?” Joe Schmoe, comes the reply from Joe. Tell Joe to come across. If the transponder doesn’t already come up as Joe Schmoe, you’ll need to change or assign the driver name. Change Driver will pop up a side pane in which you can reassign this transponder to a driver that is in this race. The one quirk: you can only find the correct driver using their last name, if you want to search. You can then Add To Race.
Having no idea who has what transponder at the start of a race might feel uncomfortable the first few times. Practice the process when RDing a club race, though, and it will soon become second nature. I generally add 30 seconds to my core time between races for the first round, as we’ll discuss in a future post. Once you have this down, you too will never write or type another transponder number!
Fast forward to today. The LiveTime Scoring software provides excellent tools for real-time transponder assignments… so much so that I never ask a racer for their transponder number. In fact, I refuse it when they offer! Why this approach?
I have always found transponder numbers error-prone. I must have a bit of dyslexia, along with maybe half of the racer population, because most people seem to write or type the wrong number a bunch of the time. Loading from RC Signup? It’s amazing how many people have that same transponder, 1234567. 1111111 is pretty popular, too. Ultimately, though, it’s as simple as this: it’s less time and effort to assign transponders during race warm-ups during round #1. You can do this so quickly that most people don’t even notice it, and with zero errors.
Let’s assume that you’re RDing a big race with many people who a) haven’t raced on your system and b) you don’t know personally. When these things aren’t true, picking up missing transponders in real time is dead simple. You’ve got 10 or 12 people in each race, and most of them do not have correct transponder assignments in your system.
The single most important tool LiveTime offers is the list of names associated with a transponder that it has picked up, but who are not listed in the current race for the current class. If you don’t already know about this, here’s what happens. As racers cross the loop for the first time, transponders are picked up by the system. If your software already has this number assigned to a car in this race, that racer is checked in… their color changes, “line crossing” sound plays, and you’ll never see this transponder number. If the system doesn’t know which car this transponder belongs to, a different sound plays and a new line appears at the bottom of the race screen. On this line, you’ll find the 7-digit transponder number, a driver name if the transponder has previously been used at THIS track by one person, a list of racers who have EVER checked in on LiveTime with this number anywhere (along with the track at which that happened), and buttons that allow you to handle this event.
Your first step is to look at the people who have used this transponder. Do any of these names match a driver that’s in this race? If so, and that’s 80% of the time, you can assume that the transponder belongs to that driver. Assign it by dragging the number from the row that appeared and dropping it on the name of the racer in the race screen. They will then be checked in, and future crosses will make the normal sound. You might also check to see if the transponder lists someone with the LAST NAME of a racer in the race. Lots of father/son racers trade transponders incessantly, for some reason.
It may also be possible, depending on the track configuration, to watch the car cross the loop and/or see which driver is watching that car, and identify the correct assignment this way. If you know the racers, observing who is at the rail but not checked in will also do it, if you can eliminate down to a single person. It can be useful to ask “is John Thomas on the stand” (and depending on your view, something like “…if yes step back”). Use whatever tricks you have available to make assignments.
In an efficient program – which is or surely will be the topic of another post – all of the entries in this race will be on the track promptly. If the above process gets down to just one person who hasn’t checked in AND one transponder not assigned, you can safely guess that these two things relate to each other and drop one on the other. However, if you don’t get there and have two or more unknowns and/or two or more racers without transponders, you’ll move to a traditional hot check-in.
Call everyone to a location just before the loop. On an oval, that’s typically turns 3 and 4, etc. As you tell them to stop there, also tell the first driver without a transponder to come across the loop. You’ll want to say this several times, like: “Drivers, stop in turn 4. John Smith come across. Everyone else stop in 4. Only John Smith. Just John Smith to cross.” If you don’t repeat it like this, someone will ignore you. Watch the cars… with a little experience, you can detect the guy that STILL ignores you. Once you see everyone holding up except one car, go ahead and call the second driver without a transponder, watch the first guy cross, and drop his transponder onto his name. Repeat. Each time, call the next guy as soon as you see only the current racer moving toward the loop. With say six unknown drivers on a big offroad track, you can still complete this process in under a minute. And you will almost never have six unknowns with the LiveTime list of prior associations.
It’s certainly possible to get yourself in trouble. A great example is a father/son combo who are both in one race, and have a transponder issue. An unknown transponder comes across and you find Dad’s name in the LiveTime list and drop it on his race entry to make the assignment. Then, ANOTHER transponder comes across and here’s Dad’s name again! One of these is Junior, but you don’t know which one. In the traditional hot check-in, call Dad across first. If Dad clicks, you’re good there. If the unknown transponder comes up, you’ve assigned the wrong one, so drop this one on Dad’s entry. This action will remove the first assignment. Next, call Junior across and assign his transponder. Basic rule: always call the mis-assigned car across first, because making the proper assignment frees the wrongly-assigned transponder. If you call the unknown car first, Dad clicks… you then need to right click and “remove transponder”, get Junior to come across again, and assign to Junior. Then you still need Dad to cross. This is much less efficient.
Another problem that might occur is self-induced. While RDs are generally the most perfect of people, it’s possible that you meant to add someone to a race, told them which race they’d be in, but forgot to actually put them there. They dutifully show up… with an unknown transponder for a driver that the system doesn’t think is in this race. You need to A) figure out who this is, B) get their transponder on your screen, C) change the transponder to the correct driver’s name, and D) “add to race”. The first step is the worst step, unless you recognize one of the names in the LiveTime list.
An efficient way to handle this issue, assuming you can hear people on the driver’s stand (which every track should be built to accomplish!), is this. Call people to your place before the loop. Handle any drivers in the race but without known transponders. Tell everyone to listen to this list of names, and read the names of everyone who is checked in. Ask “who’s not checked in?” Joe Schmoe, comes the reply from Joe. Tell Joe to come across. If the transponder doesn’t already come up as Joe Schmoe, you’ll need to change or assign the driver name. Change Driver will pop up a side pane in which you can reassign this transponder to a driver that is in this race. The one quirk: you can only find the correct driver using their last name, if you want to search. You can then Add To Race.
Having no idea who has what transponder at the start of a race might feel uncomfortable the first few times. Practice the process when RDing a club race, though, and it will soon become second nature. I generally add 30 seconds to my core time between races for the first round, as we’ll discuss in a future post. Once you have this down, you too will never write or type another transponder number!
