Lane Calibration

DIY tracks.
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gpraceman
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Re: Lane Calibration

Post by gpraceman »

Welcome to the forum Dave.
SuperDave wrote:2. In several postings by others the implication is that more lanes takes more time. Not true.
I'll disagree with this statement a bit. It does take longer to stage extra cars and to retrieve them from the finish line for each heat. It should not be much extra time, but if you compared the time to run a 4 lane heat compared to that of a 8 lane heat, the extra time to stage/retrieve 4 extra cars can become quite significant over the course of the race.
SuperDave wrote:If the math sounds crazy, consider the following:
10 racers, 1 lane = 10 heats
10 racers, 10 lanes = 10 heats (but every racer runs 10 times).
You are quite correct, of course, on that point. Some think that by adding lanes, you are multiplying the number of heats to run, given the same number of racers.
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.
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Cory
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Re: Lane Calibration

Post by Cory »

SuperDave, welcome to DerbyTalk!
SuperDave wrote: 2. In several postings by others the implication is that more lanes takes more time. Not true.
IMO, it is true. It takes from 2 to 4 seconds per heat from start of race to finish. But that is only a fraction of the total time. It takes 5 to 10 seconds (or more) to stage each car if the kids are doing it. The time increase due to car staging is more or less a linear function of the number of lanes. Unless you can recoup the time added by extra lanes somehow, the same number of heats will take longer as the number of lanes increases.
SuperDave wrote:There will be a few extra heats if the number of racers is not evenly divisible by the number of lanes. For example: 4 lanes, 40 racers, 40 heats. 4 lanes, 41 racers, 44 heats.
With Stearns method and any other "block" oriented methods, I think this is true. With PPN and Lane Rotation, number of heats is always an exact multiple of the number of cars.
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kwengerd
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Re: Lane Calibration

Post by kwengerd »

OK, all of you have sold me on not having to calibrate! Now, will the GPRM software keep track of the overall times frome each lane?

There was some talk about the software dropping out the lowest time for each racer... what is the merit in doing that? If you drop the lowest, shouldn' t you also drop the highest?

Thanks to everyone for your valuable input!

Keith
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Go Bubba Go
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Re: Lane Calibration

Post by Go Bubba Go »

Not terribly familiar with the software (yet), but part of your answer can be found in the "GPRM ; ELIMINATING SLOWEST TIME" string by clicking here.

Lots of other good GPRM info in the Software forum where the above posting was found.
"Who's Grandpa's neighbor?"... Phil Davis, Down and Derby
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