Very strange racing!

[xjarcher]

We had our regional race today. All of the adults had large variance in times. The fastest car's data is below.

Heat Lane Time Speed (mph) Place
3 Blue 2.5380 201.48 2
5 Blue 2.5080 203.89 1
9 Red 2.5080 203.89 1
14 Green 2.5170 203.16 1
16 Green 2.5250 202.52 1
19 Yellow 2.5230 202.68 1
24 Red 2.5210 202.84 1
30 Yellow 2.5180 203.08 1

All of the top racers had deviations like these. Normally they are never this wild. Any ideas? Outside temp was single digits, inside comfortable. Any thoughts?

 

[BulldogRacing]

was the gate release pulled by hand?

 

[xjarcher]

Yes, same starter as the last 3 years. We've never had this much variance. Track is a Freedom and start gate is stock. We had the exact same setup (same location etc) last week and didn't have this amount of variance. 5 of the cars from last week were racing this week.

 

[HurriCrane Racing]

I've seen this out of some laser gates. Our district track is terrible!

 

[xjarcher]

I don't know what's happening with it. I have a K3 that's in excellent shape and everything seems to be working properly. I may add a solenoid but I doubt that will do it.

 

[bracketracer]

I've seen this out of some laser gates. Our district track is terrible!

If the track has the laser set up where the first car breaks the beam it's a problem!

If it's a microswitch I wonder if it's tripping before the gate is fully released? It needs to trip as the gate falls, after it's free of the latch. I used an ohmmeter on my switch and slowly released the gate to be sure.

 

[xjarcher]

It's a microswitch. Everything seems to be working as expected, I have another race or two this year so I'll have to do some research.