After watching some of the methds used to create the heat sheets for our races, I thought it could be done easier on a laptop. I asked my brother to create one (he's a MUCH better programmer than I) and this is what he has come up with so far. If anyone has any ideas for improvement, let us know.

Here is the link if you want to check it out:

http://user.gru.net/nemesis/jim/airplaneraces.htm

I didn't take time to go into your program, so I really can't give ya a lot of advise, but you might want to contact Stan Douglas (he's on here). Stan has a great program that we use in our races. It has switches that are triggered by your course workers, and keeps track of lap times, total times, cuts, etc.. It also will construct the matrix prior to the races.

Tim

There already is an excellent one. Go to the [link=http://www.NMPRA.org]National Miniature Pylon Racing Association (NMPRA)website[/link]. Click on "Software" (left side of screen). Download "Paul Herman's NMPRA Race Program". It not only does the matrix, but also keeps track of the scoring.

Paul Herman has also written another program, which will handle three classes, based on Break-out times. Go to the [link=http://www.RCPRO.org]Radio Control Pylon Racing Organization (RCPRO) website[/link]. Look on the left. Click on "RCPRO Racing". Click on "RCPRO Warbird". Click on "Race Management". This program works extremly well when people are useing different planes and engines. Can even use electric power. Classes are determined by time, not equipment. To state the obvious, you do not have to be flying warbirds to use this program.

Ken Erickson,
Columbus, IN

I didn't get a chance to get into your program as well, but I will second the opinions of both Tim and Ken. I use both the RCPro Warbird race program and Stan's timing program. Both are stand alone programs and are very user friendly, (as long as you are comfortable in front of a computer), and work very well for almost all types of racing. The Warbird program will store all the pilot information in an internal database so the next time you race, you just have to type in the AMA number, (or whatever number you put in that field), and it populates the pilot information. It also stores the scoring and times for either hard copy printing or it generates an HTML page that can be easily published to a website. It has many features that make race management easy and relatively pain free.

Stan's timing program also works very well and it also has the ability to store all the times from the previous heats and can be printed out as well. The timing program can be found on the NMPRA site, (nmpra.org), under the software tab on the left hand side of the page. It can be used either with the timing box as mentioned or it can be ran from a keyboard using specific keys to count the laps, cuts, etc.

They have both been great tools to help keep races running smoothly and without alot of troubles

T.

I tried to check the link to see if you had anything going there, but the link attempts to load some funky java applet and what with all the viruses I choose to not load it.

OK I bit the bullet and allowed the applet to load. The GUI is great. I entered in a test race and it seemed to generate a good matrix. I haven't tested the actual scoring etc. I did enter 16 pilots with two of them having frequency conflicts and all seemed to work well. It would be nice to have a dummy race so one could explore the possibilities of the applet.

How do you intend for someone to use this? Most races don't have an internet connection and installing an applet to run stand alone will be a task beyond most RC pylon racers expertise I think. Making it an EXE program would allow others to use it i.e., C++ or Visual Basic.

Anyway I like the look and feel, what algorithm is used to generate the matrix? Thanks for making the effort. It would be really nice to have an alternative program to use at races.

Good job!
Stan D.

PS:
Contact me about suggestions. I have been working races for many years and have quite a bit of experience with Paul Herman's program as well as having written the timing program on the NMPRA website. There are also some unique requirements for Club 40 style racing involving the generation of the "Mains" after the normal rounds are flown.

Thanks for your comments. We just wanted something that was easy to use, and needed minimal input. It will be available as a stand-alone download when finished.
We are open to any suggestions to make it better.

An updated version of the program can be found here:

http://user.gru.net/nemesis/jim/airplaneraces.htm

It's very easy to create a sample roster to play with. Be sure to check out the heats generation section. We've had a lot of suggestions and tried to accomodate as many as possible. I think the cool one is "With fly off", where the last round continually changes as the scores are entered, with the top scorers ending up flying against each other.

A tutorial can be found here:

http://user.gru.net/nemesis/jim/MARSTutorial.htm