I would like to take this time though to publicly thank the many people that helped NZDRA ensured The Summer Nationals at Taupo Dragway could take place and explain  some of the events pertaining the timing system.  

A few week previously the NZDRA office was notified Top Fuel Enterprises did not have access to a complete timing system to run this event and through those circumstances NZDRA would insure one would be available. With a number of phone calls the availability of other tracks timing systems was also becoming problematic.

With the kind offer from Southern Dragways of their old timing system start box and sensors the start of a mobile NZDRA timing system was underway. Another call to Nelson Drag Racing Association netted another generous offer of their old Portatree and box. This acquisition ensured a number of hours would be spent by Board member John Neilan to tie the Portatree box to the Southern Dragways start line box. As time was against John to finish the system and our team to test it at the Tokoroa fun day I was getting a little worried with the thought of trailing an untried system at the Summer Nationals without the builder available to trouble shoot, but with little alternative the pressure was on so with 800 +  metres of cable donated by Kieth Good Electrical I spent many hours attaching sensor plugs at the appropriate points over the next day or so and made the necessary modifications to the start box to correctly space the beams, With help from my wife and daughter the system was tested for the basics in my driveway Thursday afternoon. Elsewhere in Hamilton Grease Martin and Andrew Rea from Early Time Motors made and supplied the support poles to hold the cables across the track while Robert Tynan made the mounts to hold the 8 sensors for down track and the start line reflectors.

As three days of NZDRA work (licences & techs) had backed up and were more than likely needed by racers for the weekend, Friday was used to complete these tasks and to pack everything up into the truck and trailer and head to Taupo to set everything up.After two blowouts on the trailer we arrived some 4 hours later than we intended and it was starting to rain. With help from Tony Bennis, Robert Tynan, Paul Jacobs, James Tynan & Gavin Oram we set up the start support poles and lay all the cables, it was too wet to set up any electrical gear so we went to our accommodation for an early start Saturday morning. At 6 am at the track the next morning it was still raining so minimal work could be done (water and electronics don’t mix) a short time later the salvage company brought our NZDRA trailer in (remember the second blow-out) and we proceeded to set the gear up within it. At this stage we were starting to panic about the time slip printer or more precisely the lack of this device, as it was being couriered up from Nelson and was now missing presumed drowned. As the rain eased and the track dried the sensors and tree where set up and plugged in, all was ready and working (less the printer) before the track was completely dry.Tracey Sherwin, Janie Ellis and Lindsay Anstey White arrived to be shown how the basic system worked and all must be commended for there ability to pick up the basics so quickly. The system worked with no hardware issues all day, although trying to connect another computer and a announcers monitor for Manwell proved to be harder than was thought. Manwell did a great job over the weekend with no info in front of him proving he is talented in this role.

Later after the notified 4.30 finish to testing, a number of runs where preformed by staff to ensure the indexing and tree types were correctly working for Sundays racing before packing away for the day. The Sunday dawned bright and sunny, the tree and start line box where set up and all was good to go. Before starting of qualifying Tracey wanted to try half a dozen Juniors so we could simulate a qualified field and see if the software would ladder it. The first two cars edged into the start beams, the button pushed….nothing happened! Some frantic checking of cables plugs rebooting of Portatree box all produced nothing! A quick call to Grant Bevinuti - Portatree guru from Masterton produced some ideas but still not the result we needed. I thought it had to be something simple as it had all worked so well the day before. After trying all avenues I suggested shut everything down, computers and all and then reboot everything again, thank the god of smoke it worked, we where up and running again. I must apologise to all the racers and spectators on hand and thank them for their patience but please remember there has been no time to train anyone or test any of this system before this weekend, and even the best can have trouble, but again thanks for your patience.

After that little issue did the software work? Unfortunately not for us this time, so all the qualifying and laddering had to be done manually, this can be difficult and along with hand writing time slips (no printer) even more so. My two daughters Jenny and Jennifer where also recruited into the NZDRA trailer to help perform these tasks. With the exception of the beginning of the day and for the lunch break when the ladders where manually set out, the only hold up to racing was due to insufficient cars in the staging lanes, a problem out of anyones control.

In all I am very happy the way the system worked and extremely grateful to the following people for their help to set this system up: 

All of these people contributed to the operation and ownership of the NZDRA portable timing system. Available for NZDRA sanctioned events anywhere when required. 

Chris Tynan  Manager NZDRA