Flaws in rcRacingEvents.

Intlwaters

Help Support Intlwaters:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Bill Britton

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2007
Messages
1,500
I have been informed by a few people that rcRacingEvents has serious limitations, or is flawed. Despite my numerous requests here on IW, not a single person has reported to me that they have had issues with it's operation.

If anyone has experienced any issues with rcRacingEvents please post them here as I have not had a single issue reported to me about is operation in almost two years. In fact I get phone calls regarding how "Stellar" it works. I get constant reports that even people who have never scored before use it with any help at all.

I must be missing something, I expect this to be full rather shortly by the recent statements about how "flawed" it is.

Everyone is welcome to post. And I do mean everyone. No restrictions.

T.S. Davis . You have the floor...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Our club has been using rcRacingEvents for a couple years now. I don't work with it directly but my club members are sold on it. Yes - there were a couple glitch's here and there. Show me in the world of "On Line Computing" where there are no glitch's. If NAMBA has the answer they will be wealthier than Bill Gates.
default_smile.png


Not sure posting this question will help you Bill. You may just get guy's that like to hear themselves type and then read what they write.

We'll stick with rcRacingEvents.

Doug
 
Namba will have there glitches to with a new one they will have alot it takes a while to get most glitches out which Bill has done i always say why reinvent the wheel work on the wheel make it better
 
Bill,

A few things on the program that I have questions/comments on:

1) Is there a way to see information on past races entries that has racers information (address,phone#, email?) (as the administrator). (Same information that can be seen before race is actually ran.)

2) On the invite racers , it looks to use multiple duplicate emails and just adds each race - even if same email.

3) Is there a way to add a racer online in the manage racers function. You can delete and modify entries, but cannot add a racer. We have racers in D4 that have no computer and call in their entry.

The program has made holding and running races a great addition to the hobby.

I don't have problems with it. It does take time to learn and the YouTube videos you have definitely help.

Thanks for using your expertise!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Since you have asked, changes needed are:

1. Need to be able to change the name of a racer in the program. At times misspellings occur, a family member or someone else will take over the first racer's classes, etc. Cannot do that now in the edit function. Have to delete and reenter and that is a real pain. Even making it worse is the Paypal payment is mandatory when entering. Changing to mail in option does not work well on the financials at all.

2. Cannot move racers manually from one heat to another. It is CRITICAL to be able to do it. The mathematical algorithms do not always split heats into even heat count boat numbers. Example: 3 heats, 16 boats, you get 2 heats at 6 and one at 4. Should be one at 6 and 2 at 5. Same for 13 boats and 3 heats - 2 at 5 and one at 3. Need the algorithms re-examined AND add in the edit function to move racers in the primary program and not in the scoring program. I know you want the randomizing of doing the heat setup but the balance in many of the heats does not work. So manual moving by writing in is mandatory and a real pain. Then the scoring program does not have the same heat numbers for that racer due to the manual shift. I have asked for this change for over 3 years, still waiting.

3. Scoring program crashes with run time errors and shuts down. Happens at least 4-5 times during a race. Not seen if the same actions (scoring heats) causes the crashes. This is minor compared to the first two.

I very much like the overall program and use it 2-4 times yearly and likely continue in the future. A bit of a learning curve but every software program requires the same.

Bill - don't take it personal, there are some changes needed to improve the product. The CMB club just paid a chunk of change a few days ago for the Fall Nationals. We would love to see the improvements made.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
We have used this program at Hobart for several years now. I had a few questions and requests this year and Bill was great in helping me. We'll plan on continuing using this program.

Stu
 
John I appreciate your input.

1, Name edit of entry.

Not a problem. I was not aware that there was a need for this.

2a, Moving racers between heats.

While I understand your desire for this to be online. It is not practical. There has been the capability to do this in the scoring app since the beginning. This may have been an issue when you had to print out the event documents online making it difficult to audit the racers against the heats after a change, but the printing of the documents online is now deprecated and it is preferred to print them out in the scoring app AFTER any changes have been made. The website is primarily for taking entries and basic compilation of the heats and rounds. Changes to the heats should be performed in the scoring app. This negates the need to re-download changes if they were done online.

I can streamline the move racer process in the scoring app and will research this in the next 14 days.

I special circumstances, I do make these changes manually online prior to them being downloaded but that is after the even coordinator has explained a situation to me that deems the need for it to be done manually. These instances are rare.

2b, Heat split algorithms

These have been reworked in August of this year and now produce the results you desire. The 13 boat class example you speak of was brought to my attention by Stu Barr and has also been corrected.

3, Scoring application crashes

I have not had a single report of application crashing in at least two years. If this occurs, please provide a screenshot, or at a minimum provide the text of the dialog.

Bill
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Respectfully disagree on item #2. All of the heats are set up within the base program. Moving racers to different heats as needed, for whatever reason, should be available within that program. Meaning it is for the race set up as well as the heats and the printing of all of the needed race documents. That way the heat setup and associated documents will be the same at the start of the race. All of that is done for me at home and I know other clubs do it too.

The scoring program should be for that only, making last minute adjustments at the lake and scoring the heats. We have a dedicated laptop that we use for the scoring at the lake. Not done on the desktop and will not be. Strongly suggest that the "move racer" edit function to be put into the base program. This would then have the program fully functional for the clubs that are now paying for the service.

If the program crashes, I will get the error number and text and forward it.

Again I say that the program is excellent and plan on continuing in the future.
 
Nothing here will be of any help since I only type so that I can read what I write later.

Bill, you do know that there are other forums right? Go look at the FE section here on IW. There are very few posts there. 8 threads in 2015 maybe. FE guys go elsewhere. Not a dig on IW. Just a reality. OSE has over 15,000 members. Posting your fee schedule on an obscure forum instead of on the front page of your website may not be the best way to communicate with your clientele. It's led to some receiving invoices questioning their validity. Emails about that validity go unanswered. I don't believe our treasurer even has an IW user name. Expecting him to be aware of the fees posted here is kind of unrealistic. He likely wouldn't have known about the fees if they were posted on JRCBD either.

Requesting input here on IW got nothing from FE guys. As I mentioned, they don't come here much.

A few off the top of my head:

Workable problems first.

Registration-

A fuel event has "X" number of classes. Let's say 20 classes. For a multiple day event you run all 20 in order until you get through them. Then start over for another round. Get in as many rounds as possible in the multiple days. A multi-day FE event doesn't run that way at all. Each day runs a different set of classes. So to do a registration for FE you have to create a separate event for each day. Not that big of deal but it's a PIA. You can't have an event with ZERO cost so you have to have the registration fee set to $.01 on the second/third/4th days. Workable right? Until you start getting paypal from guys and they have no idea what to do with what. They have a goofy invoice from each day. Then if you have a guy coming day three that wont be there day 1. His invoice would be spit out with maybe a fee of $.04 for the 4 classes he wants to run that day 3. He didn't sign up for day one where the initial entry fee was located. Ugh. So for a multiple day FE event the invoice feature is completely useless. It all has to be done manually.

Scoring-

Pick a heat. Lets say heat 10 of 45 for a day. The boats get two laps in and a flock of birds land on the course. We stop. Club policy. "We'll re-run it at the end of the day" Accept the software wont allow scoring of heats out of order. If you just run it at the end of the day and then add the scores in back at heat number 10 it deletes everything you've put in after heat number 10. Those scores are gone. We finally decided to give everyone 400 points for that heat, subtract it from the totals, then add in the actual scores manually at the end of the day. Workable. PIA.

In FE we have a number of classes we call "offshore". If you're not familiar, it's a timed race. 4 minutes, count the number of laps. Broken down into quarter lap increments. So for a given race you could get say 10.25 laps. This can't be input into RCRE because RCRE only allows 4 actual characters. We found a work around. We call 10.25 laps 1025 points and move the decimal point in our heads. Workable. All we needed was one extra character.

I'm told shifting racers around after the heats are generated is difficult.

I also remember in Canada hearing that deleting an entry is easy but adding a guy late is a nightmare. Not sure what he meant by that. I don't usually mess with the actual scoring.

Issues that were not workable.

Black outs.

When the site goes down you're screwed. It's happened to everyone. Sometimes for extended periods. Both to entrants and to event organizers trying to download the entries. You can do heats and scoring manually but when you're committed to using the software you're not prepared for it to suddenly be unavailable. For our Michigan Cup we resorted to down loading the entries twice a day leading up to the race so that if we couldn't get to the data we would hopefully only be missing a couple last minute entries.

No tech support.

When there is a problem there's no recourse. "Oh, crap the RCRE site's down". Send an email. Might get answered a week after your event. I've not personally tried to contact you but I'm told that is not easy to do. That isn't really criticism by the way. The reality is that it's not a career for you or even a source of income really. We get that. Well, most do. You shouldn't have to be at our beckon call 24/7. Doesn't change that we're hosed when there is a problem.

Those are just the things I can remember. We have two guys that do 99% of the scoring but as I said, they rarely come to IW.
 
On a multi-day event you also have to stagger the registration dates. The race dates are different but if the registration dates are the same it will only allow you register fro the first day. That one was a bugger to figure out. No tech support on that one. Fred figured that one out on his own.

Fred thought the invoice was a scam. We'll make it right.
 
Bill

You have been paid for both races that you have sent me. Like Terry said I thought it was a scam after trying to contact you and getting no response I just let it drop.

I have tried to email at least 20 times with questions on the program over the last two year and have never got a email back.

about a year ago I gave up trying

There have been at least three time that guys across the country have called me to help them with your program because they have sent you email mails and have got no response from you, so they have called me for the tec. support to get it going for them

with that being said if you have any other questions feel free to call me you have my number from rcracing events

Fred Siewert
 
OK.

I think we are now beginning to identify the problem.

These are not flaws ...

Your trying to use RCRE to do something it was not intended to do.

RCRE was designed for traditional heat racing formats used in both NAMBA and IMPBA. There were no clubs or sanction bodies from the electric side of this hobby that provided any input when it was created. Therefore it was designed for traditional nitro and gas heat racing only.

Also, 99% of all members and clubs that use RCRE frequent IW, So making the assertion that IW is an obscure forum is not accurate.

With that being said I will try to address your issues;

Registration-

A fuel event has "X" number of classes. Let's say 20 classes. For a multiple day event you run all 20 in order until you get through them. Then start over for another round. Get in as many rounds as possible in the multiple days.
Exactly. This is what RCRE was designed to do.

A multi-day FE event doesn't run that way at all. Each day runs a different set of classes. So to do a registration for FE you have to create a separate event for each day. Not that big of deal but it's a PIA.
True. I have assisted other FE events and this is how they had to be created.

You can't have an event with ZERO cost so you have to have the registration fee set to $.01 on the second/third/4th days. Workable right? Until you start getting paypal from guys and they have no idea what to do with what.
Typically all races have entry fees. If this is something that is unique to FE then there is your answer. It was designed for traditional nitro and gas events.

They have a goofy invoice from each day.
I was unaware that the receipts were "goofy". Most people I have spoken with appreciate the receipts for their entries.

Then if you have a guy coming day three that wont be there day 1. His invoice would be spit out with maybe a fee of $.04 for the 4 classes he wants to run that day 3. He didn't sign up for day one where the initial entry fee was located. Ugh. So for a multiple day FE event the invoice feature is completely useless. It all has to be done manually.
Agreed. it is useless. But this is because you are trying to shoehorn a format into it that it was never designed to do. This is because there were zero FE clubs that provided input when RCRE was created.
 
Scoring-

Pick a heat. Lets say heat 10 of 45 for a day. The boats get two laps in and a flock of birds land on the course. We stop. Club policy. "We'll re-run it at the end of the day" Accept the software wont allow scoring of heats out of order. If you just run it at the end of the day and then add the scores in back at heat number 10 it deletes everything you've put in after heat number 10. Those scores are gone. We finally decided to give everyone 400 points for that heat, subtract it from the totals, then add in the actual scores manually at the end of the day. Workable. PIA.
Traditional heat racing is ran sequentially. RCRE was designed for traditional heat racing. Also, running heats out of order would jack up the round scores that are printed and posted between heats in typical heat racing. Final rounds that require accurate score would then be affected as well, such as runoffs or other formats.

In FE we have a number of classes we call "offshore". If you're not familiar, it's a timed race. 4 minutes, count the number of laps. Broken down into quarter lap increments. So for a given race you could get say 10.25 laps. This can't be input into RCRE because RCRE only allows 4 actual characters. We found a work around. We call 10.25 laps 1025 points and move the decimal point in our heads. Workable. All we needed was one extra character.
Again. RCRE was designed for traditional heat racing. FE clubs provided no input during is design and creation.

I'm told shifting racers around after the heats are generated is difficult.
Moving racers from one heat to another is done in the scoring app. Agreed it is not streamlined, but it is by no means difficult. it is just not a three mouse-click process. I will be streamlining this in the scoring app in the coming few weeks to make this as simple as it can be.

I also remember in Canada hearing that deleting an entry is easy but adding a guy late is a nightmare. Not sure what he meant by that. I don't usually mess with the actual scoring.
Both adding and removing racers from an event, class, or heat is a snap. It's a one or two mouse-click process that is as easy as it can be. It is done in the scoring app.

Black outs.

When the site goes down you're screwed. It's happened to everyone. Sometimes for extended periods. Both to entrants and to event organizers trying to download the entries. You can do heats and scoring manually but when you're committed to using the software you're not prepared for it to suddenly be unavailable.
True there were network connectivity issues earlier this year from mid April through early June. This was due to construction and upgrades being done in my area. This is no excuse, I acknowledge this. It has since been corrected. I will say this, In the previous years RCRE has had very little connectivity issues until then. And I have taken steps to minimize the chances of this from occurring. In the almost ten years of its existence connectivity issues have been quite good actually in contrast.

For our Michigan Cup we resorted to down loading the entries twice a day leading up to the race so that if we couldn't get to the data we would hopefully only be missing a couple last minute entries.
Typically the cutoff date for entries is 3-5 days before an event. Even with network issues this would still leave ample time to setup the heats and download them prior to an event.

No tech support.

When there is a problem there's no recourse. "Oh, crap the RCRE site's down". Send an email. Might get answered a week after your event. I've not personally tried to contact you but I'm told that is not easy to do. That isn't really criticism by the way. The reality is that it's not a career for you or even a source of income really. We get that. Well, most do. You shouldn't have to be at our beckon call 24/7. Doesn't change that we're hosed when there is a problem.
I suspect that this is because as you stated you don't frequent this site.There are many people here that can reach me. A PM here would even work. A post asking for my contact info would certainly get you my number and email without difficulty.

I will be updating my contact info in conspicuous places in the user section of the website and the scoring app. in the next week or so. In the mean time please use the PM function here in IW.

On a multi-day event you also have to stagger the registration dates. The race dates are different but if the registration dates are the same it will only allow you register fro the first day. That one was a bugger to figure out. No tech support on that one. Fred figured that one out on his own.
True. Because traditional heat racing clubs only have one event at a time. As an FE club using FE format racing you will need to treat each day as a separate event.

I will try to work with the FE groups as best I can and try to integrate the needed functionality, but at this point it will be difficult. It would have been much easier had there been at least some input from FE clubs.

Let me know if you need more info, or need clarification on any of the topics above. I will review all issues in this thread and post updates as they are addressed.

Bill
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Is there a way to hold a shootout style race where after each round you enter scores and it puts guys in heats according to highest score down to lowest so high score races always race each other?

I guess from above answers it probably can be done but not what Rcre was designed to do.

As far as being a nightmare to add a racer the day of an event it is but it had nothing to do with your software. I print everything the night before and if there is a walk in they have to be hand written on pitboss and scoring sheets and hope it doesn't create an extra heat.

Is it possible to use a tablet /iPad to enter scores
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Is there a way to hold a shootout style race where after each round you enter scores and it puts guys in heats according to highest score down to lowest so high score races always race each other?
Shoot out style events have been supported for 3-4 years.

This one of the reasons that running heats out of order are not allowed.
 
Is there a way to hold a shootout style race where after each round you enter scores and it puts guys in heats according to highest score down to lowest so high score races always race each other?
Shoot out style events have been supported for 3-4 years.
This one of the reasons that running heats out of order are not allowed.
I'm new to Rcre so I'll need to find those utube videos duke mentioned
 
Typically round 1 is a traditional heat format. There is a option in the scoring program to generate shootout heats. I have used it and it works quite well.

Good to see some of the issues will be resolved. I intend on using it for every race. Know it will be even better in the future.
 
"Flawed" probably isn't the right word. "Limited" might be. For us, the rigid format is it's limitation. We either do it the traditional way or................IDK. Don't use it I guess. It's not like the FE format is new. It's been run that way as long as I've been racing. Maybe 15 years. 2005 FE had 500 some odd entries for one of the larger events. All with that multi-day format. That was race craft software I think. Long time ago.

I guess it comes down to communication. You didn't hunt down some experienced FE......rs' and experienced FE.........rs' didn't know you were working on it. We can't be everywhere and neither can you. None of us is psychic. Psycho maybe. MMEU has hosted some good sized events. We might have been of use to you in the development stages but as infrequently as some of us FE tools view IW the guys that might have been helpful didn't realize it was being developed. Hind sight.

At this stage is there any point in even talking about it? Sounds like the format is the format and we (FE) can either fit into it or find our own solution.

Accessibility was the most frustrating hiccup. The rest we were dealing with. Lot of trial and error on Fred's part. Black outs lasted longer than 3 to 5 days too. Then which 3 to 5 days? Was it blacked out 3 to 5 days before the event? Was it 3 to 5 days before the registration cut off? How about a full missing week just before the deadline? How about it disappears the 2 days before your event when you are finalizing heats so you can print them? ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Sounds like the new server, although more costly, has cured the blackouts.
 
Bill would be great if we could have the Canadian provinces as available from the drop downs, additionally Canadian Postal codes are alpha numeric so we would need that field changed. Canadian clubs are registering as if in the states. Thanks for the service. Tony J
 
Bill!!!,

I have nothing but praise for your latest upgrades and improvements!!! I entered the SOWEGA Race last week and received a confirmation from you such entry was completed with not problems.. Kinda brought a tear to my eye being recognized for following instructions!! Does that qualify me for a Participation Trophy?? Because that's what some of the complaints that are coming in are asking make it so simple if I put an "X" in Box "A" I am entered?? Keep doing what you are doing and those of us with some resemblance of brain power can figure it out!!! JMHO!!!

Later!!

Pat
 
Back
Top