Came across this;
http://www.flickr.com/photos/prs_photo/sets/72157628299850105/with/6463762163/

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Anders Green

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HiTempguy
It really is amazing how the to the tenth timing really, REALLY can make a big difference in a rally (to the point of being scary at just how far off previous results could be when only done to the second!)

I feel differently. I once did an analysis of the top 5 in the RA nationals for their entire history, looking at the results as recorded (with tenths) versus what the results would have been if you had truncated or averaged the stage results to "just seconds".

In the eight years, I found that not having tenths would have created one tie out of a second and third place. I don't feel that changing one result in a decade is a big difference.

The more stages you have, the less likely the standings with tenths will differ from those without tenths. (Not more _miles_, more counted stages.) This is just the math and statistics of sampling resolution being averaged out.

Cheers,
Anders

I can remember at least one NW rally years ago with an overall to the second tie, as well as a few down the order. I think tie breakers were whoever had the most stage wins. But to the tenth timing might have produced a different result.

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john vanlandingham
Timing in general has always been a thing we seem to have simple blind trust in its accuracy and consistency.

But I have personally been in several cases where I had caught the car in front--one time with a 2 minute gap on a 18 mile stage----and when the car in front would not pullover, followed them literally less than 4-5 feet off their bumper ( not being an ass but trying to stay close so rocks go under the car and wouldn't go UP and smash my lights, windscreen and radiator, and so dust---or snow in one case---wouldn't billow up and blind us) and then recieve a time showing 5 seconds difference for less than 5 feet difference..
Well at 75mph you go 110 feet/sec so 5 seconds would mean 550 feet..

550 feet is over a 1/10 of a mile... My car is 15 feet long.

Something was obviously screwy....

Inquiries resulted in change to 1 second..

Hmmmmmmm 1 second still was 110 feet....

Did it make a difference? Can't remember but it graphically illustrated a gross error in timing technique.

This exact thing happened to Pat Richard at the International Rallye Charlevoix 2000. We were in a tight battle for the PGT championship with Brian Scott that year. Anyway, Pat caught Jon Nichols in his rental Mistsubshi when the head gasket blew and went over the flying finish on his bumper, yet he got a time showing a ten second gap. Obviously, a few feet off the bumper is not a 10 second gap. Luckily for us the TV guys had a camera set up recording the flying finish and the video with it's own running time stamp showed the gap was on the same second or whatever. We made an inquiry and the officials looked at the video and the time was corrected. Brian Scott wasn't happy but what can you do, the evidence showed what the correct time was.

Its been proven that 56% of all statistics are meaningless.

Statistics are useless.
A statistic would be to say, 98% of the results in US rallying in the past ten years would have been uneffected by change from .1 to 1 second timing.

That's useless because there is nothing we can do about those 2% of potential times nor do we know or can we know what the actual error was. We can say 23% of those 2% were likely to have had a different result. Again, useless because we can't go back and change a thing.
But useful because we can then decide if that based upon previous years we want to upgrade the timing equipment.

Where's Adam Crane's video already? I've seen a wicked cool picture of him, but I like watching RWD video!

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NoCoast
Where's Adam Crane's video already? I've seen a wicked cool picture of him, but I like watching RWD video!

http://contour.com/users/acrane
Looks like he's got a few stages posted already.

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-Brian

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tipo158
I don't understand why this discussion is even happening.

Ask Keith, man, he's the one that started in with error rates and whatnot.

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NoCoast
But useful because we can then decide if that based upon previous years we want to upgrade the timing equipment.

Yup. Or, like this: "Vote: would you like to raise the entry fees by $25 so that, over the next decade, four results out of 9,000 aren't incorrect?"

Anders

(the 4 is a guess based on extrapolating the calculations I've done already)

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Grassroots rally. It's what I think about.

Um. no. Don't care. 1 second timing is fine. Need to break a tie, have a tire changing contest or something.

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Anders Green
Ask Keith, man, he's the one that started in with error rates and whatnot.

Way to take ownership of your threadjack Anders.
All I did was point out that 2nd and 3rd were separated by less than the margin of error of to the second timing over the 11 stages. You went on to muddy that by saying it was unimportant.

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Anders Green
Yup. Or, like this: "Vote: would you like to raise the entry fees by $25 so that, over the next decade, four results out of 9,000 aren't incorrect?

From who won a stage to who won the event this is something that came from the grassroots that they wanted and were willing to support. The reality was the question was more like "do you want to increase entry fees by $25/car to save money to eventually but an electronic start and finish system and then continue to charge the $25/car to support maintenance and replacement of the system for the foreseeable future?
The answers to that in Rallywest and RallySportOntario were STONGLY yes.
Start lights were certainly part of the attraction. I've personally seen starts by hand float by well over a second from car to car.

Back to Big White... What tires were people running? What was working well? Were the conditions packed snow on ice, on forzen gravel, on soft gravel? Just ice? Ice/snow/gravel mix?
All of the above? Some of the above?

-Martin.

Conditions were LOTS of ice, some snow, some gravel poking through here and there. Solid ice base.

Max was on A034s almost certainly.

Our regional rules allow slightly aggressive street studs and I think a lot of the field were on studded winters. Kumho KW19 (disconinued) is damned near a spec tire out here.

2wd winner Eric Grochowski pulled the studs on his winters (KW19s I think) to be eligible for the 'Studless is faster' award sponsored by Rocket Rally.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/07/2011 02:45PM by Morison.

Yup max was on ao34's. So was his recce car. Hendo also ao34'd it. Seemed like maybe a third of folks used those.

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Brap Brap.

We were on A034's as well. I'm not convinced that they would have been any faster than the studded general altimax's I had in the back of the legacy, especially when it got really icy. Unfortunately we never got to test that theory, as all of the fast dudes were running A034's so they could win another set.

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HiTempguy

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Billyee
We were taking split times from our location on SS1, we were about 150 yards from the cattle guard, Kelly did have the slowest split time out of any competitor/ I would find it very hard to believe that he made all that time up and then put almost 10 seconds on Max in that very short amount of stage that was left.

Either way, it didn't affect the pointy end of the rally, just interesting to note none of us bothered to correct it

What about the rest of the rally?


the point of having a spear is the long reach afforded to you by the handle, otherwise you'd just use a dagger.

if you need to kill a buffalo to survive, do you want a dagger or a spear?

the Handle is very important, in fact it's really what makes a spear so damn spiffy.
.....

We can't just worry about how many 1-3rd place positions are affected. We should be concerned with accurately scoring every competitor that shows up to the rally.



The exact probability of being within 2 seconds of your actual time is 0.4795.

so the exact probability of Not being with in 2 seconds of your actual time is 53.05%

Over half the time in a 10 stage rally your time is off by 2 seconds. how many times is there a 2 second gap between positions (any positions) I would guess half the rallies in the US have at least 2 finishers with in 2 seconds of each other. so there's a 28% that both you and your nearest competitor both have their times off by 2 seconds. so really if you are with in 4 seconds of a competitor, there's a chance the two of you finished in the opposite order as the results show.

I think if you went back and looked at all rallies, for how many times 2 competitors are with in 4 seconds of each other (in any place) its gonna be a LOT more than the 1 or 2 you came up with.

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A1337STI
What about the rest of the rally?

The gaps tend to get larger and larger further down the field. At the front, you're limited by physics, dollars, and skill, pushing up that wall. At the rear, there's no limit to how much of that one might not have.

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I think if you went back and looked at all rallies, for how many times 2 competitors are with in 4 seconds of each other (in any place) its gonna be a LOT more than the 1 or 2 you came up with.

The beauty of data is that we can find out! Let's look (ra nationals chosen since they generally have tenth data and I know the web site to find them):
2011 Oly: 0
2011 100aw: 1
2011 SD: 0
2011 OT: 1
2011 STPR: 1
2011 NEFR: 1

The 1 or 2 I came up with were the count of where the results actually DID change. The count listed for the 2011 series is only answering your question of how many results were within 4 seconds of each other. It may make a difference, it may not, someone would have to go through the stage times.

Cheers,
Anders

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Grassroots rally. It's what I think about.