New Timing System

 I finally did it. Actually, I had been attempting to buy one of these for a few months but it wasn't panning out. I was doing the rounds and came across one, so I picked it up. 

Carrera Evolution Electronic Lap Counter

Up until this point, my timing method has been counting laps to a running stopwatch, then dividing the time by how many laps a car ran. It works okay, but it's a little clumsy, and counting is distracting. But now I don't have to worry about any of that. I just set how many laps I want to run and go! 

It's got two settings: Time Trial and Lap Race. Both are adjustable for length.

This works exactly as advertised. I ran the Elva #47 through a 50 lap race. I crashed a few times, and even got to focus more on what I was doing, which I couldn't do as well with my old timing system. The tower has two settings: Lap Race [adjustable from 1-999 laps] and Time Trial [adjustable up to 59:59]. The system default sets with a 50 Lap Race, which is great because that's what I like to usually run. Even though I want to run time trials, Lap Race mode is perfect when racing a friend. That opinion might change later, but we'll see. 

As you pass under the tower, one of two audio beeps are heard. I'm not sure what the difference is just yet, as there's no info in the instructions about it. I'll replace this section when I find out what the deal is.

For kicks I also tried a shorter race, then tried some time trials. I set it at 2 minutes, and at the end it shows laps and last lap time, but it doesn't show average lap time. There's a way to flip through some other readings, but I couldn't figure out how to do it. 

I don't expect this to be the best solution, but it's going to be a pretty solid upgrade for me. Good to put focus on bettering the experience. 

There are some other things about it. Now that I have an actual timing system, even if it's just an analog one, it's still a timing system. So now it'll be easier to compare cars' times, which means that it'll be a good idea to design a time trial layout. That way I'll be able to refer to that layout to get lap times between the cars. Yeah, I could just take any old layout I've done before, but I want something that is going to be fair to all the cars. So a little tricky and a little fast. Also it would be helpful if the layout fit on my floor without having to move too much. It doesn't necessarily have to be the largest layout, but it would be good that it was a consistent one. I'll run other races as well, and the timer is going to really come in handy. But to have a reference track that all the cars can run on will be more "official". 

So I like it. Already I'm able to focus more on my cars and not so much on counting. I would like to figure out how to get more stats out of it than I have so far. Just have to push the right buttons.