I installed Trackmate's race management system on my 1/32nd scale track last year, prior to hosting my first IHSR racing event. It performed well both at that event and my second race in November 2021. But during my most recent event, in March of this year, it glitched. We had to restart the first race three times due to lap counting issues.
In prior years I have used a venerable TrikTrax lap counter for the races I have hosted. It proved utterly reliable, and frankly I was both appalled and somewhat amused by the hiccups of computer-based race management systems at other racing events I attended. It seemed like every other race I attended was marred by a race management issue. All of which, to be fair, got resolved after a period of frustrating troubleshooting. But I came away suspecting that computer-based race management systems in general were not ready for prime-time. And I was confounded by the fact that Trackmate, one of the worst offenders, continued to have issues after gawd-knows how many releases and 'upgrades'.
So it was with considerable trepidation I decided to install Trackmate on my track. I did that knowing that it was the system most of my racing buddies used. It was my hope that, if should have an issue with it I could fall back on the experience of others to help resolve a problem on race day.
To my relief, installing Trackmate was relatively straightforward, and it started up without issues. Better yet, on the first two race days it behaved itself.
And, again to be fair, when it did glitch at that third race event, my fall-back plan worked out. One of my attendees who used Trackmate at their own track was able to jump in and wrangle it back into functionality.
But that experience has left me feeling distrustful of Trackmate. Again.
I have heard that there are other race management programs available that work with the Trackmate hardware. And I have heard that some folks have had better experiences with same. I am interested in learning what alternatives are available, and what folks experiences with them has been. I am ready to spend some time experimenting with one or more alternate systems, and more than ready to jump ship should I find a good one.
In prior years I have used a venerable TrikTrax lap counter for the races I have hosted. It proved utterly reliable, and frankly I was both appalled and somewhat amused by the hiccups of computer-based race management systems at other racing events I attended. It seemed like every other race I attended was marred by a race management issue. All of which, to be fair, got resolved after a period of frustrating troubleshooting. But I came away suspecting that computer-based race management systems in general were not ready for prime-time. And I was confounded by the fact that Trackmate, one of the worst offenders, continued to have issues after gawd-knows how many releases and 'upgrades'.
So it was with considerable trepidation I decided to install Trackmate on my track. I did that knowing that it was the system most of my racing buddies used. It was my hope that, if should have an issue with it I could fall back on the experience of others to help resolve a problem on race day.
To my relief, installing Trackmate was relatively straightforward, and it started up without issues. Better yet, on the first two race days it behaved itself.
And, again to be fair, when it did glitch at that third race event, my fall-back plan worked out. One of my attendees who used Trackmate at their own track was able to jump in and wrangle it back into functionality.
But that experience has left me feeling distrustful of Trackmate. Again.
I have heard that there are other race management programs available that work with the Trackmate hardware. And I have heard that some folks have had better experiences with same. I am interested in learning what alternatives are available, and what folks experiences with them has been. I am ready to spend some time experimenting with one or more alternate systems, and more than ready to jump ship should I find a good one.
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