I know those guys hit the chutes a tad before the finish line in many cases, but wouldn't the parachute have to be FULLY DEPLOYED, i.e. full of air, to grab a timing block? From watching, it looks like the chutes stream out directly behind the car until they fill with air.

quote:

Originally posted by Runner-up:
Now I am curious, did the angle of the reflector make the distance to travel longer and is this the reason for the speed increase?

I doubt it. Light travels at, well, the speed of light, which is pretty fast. The beam is either broken or unbroken, no?

It don't really matter how the block moved, IF they set it straight and the timing equipment functioned properly thereafter.

This goes for the phenomenon for why the timing equipment didn't function properly, once the block was moved back to its proper place.

They did the right thing by going to the video to determine who won the race on the race track.

The race determines the winner ultimately, not the timing equipment or track officials.

By the officials going to the video, the race determined the winner observably.

Why the timing equipment didn't work properly with the beam on the reflector, once the block moved 1/4" can be researched / investigated and determined / learned / improved later.

As long as the race determines the winner, officials did the right thing.

Speed of light has very little to do with how it works.The speed of the beam coming across and back would remain the same, its the angle of how the beam is broken by the front tire. the sensor basically is an on or off switch feeding that info back to the tower.

In this case it was how the beam was broken but the timing cone was not in the correct position it was forward by a couple inches so yes that would throw all the numbers off. If you ever did the roll out on the starting line a small 1/8 change can have a drastic change on your reaction times.. So in this case the beam was broken in a forward out of alignment position. This was the one in a million shot it actually worked and had to be right on the very edge of working.

There is no way any timing system would know that the angle of the timing cone was changed. The systems are looking at the sensor to see if its on or off.

Have you ever been to different tracks in the same area and wonder why your 60ft or other number are slightly different , faster or slower. Taking out air/ temp/ traction being the same. I run at track X and my 60s are consistently faster than track Z. Alignment and correct distance of the timing cone can vary slightly from track to track. or is the 1320 cone actually 1320 and not 1315 because years ago someone measured it wrong or done on purpose to make you come back to track Z as you run faster there. Tricks from many years ago new track owners discover when redoing things..

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Turk,

quote:

Originally posted by Turk:
Speed of light has very little to do with how it works.The speed of the beam coming across and back would remain the same, its the angle of how the beam is broken by the front tire. the sensor basically is an on or off switch feeding that info back to the tower.

Sorry, but moving the finish line beam an inch or two either way due to the block moving at an angle won't add 20mph to trap speed, nor add/subtract several hundredths to ET.

You talk about rollout and reaction times, but at the other end of the track, the car is moving from a stop, not going 200mph, the impacts are therefore exaggerated.

It really amazes me how many people, including track officials, that have a very limited knowledge base on timing systems.