How To Use Free Practice

[eLapsRaceTiming]

Free Practice functionality is designed to display (and announce) the lap times of any transponder on the track - without the need to create an Event or set transponders up in Heats.

To use Free Practice, first connect to your tracks decoder, then click the 'START Free Practice' button on the right side of the screen.



Once started, the timer (top right of screen) will begin to count up (in one second intervals) the total time Free Practice has been running. The timer will restart each time Free Practice is started.

Transponders and their corresponding lap times will appear in the lap time list (main window on the Free Practice screen). The lap time list is ordered by Round (descending), Laps (descending), Total time (ascending).



NOTE: When a transponder has been associated with driver details (Name, Car Number, Sponsor etc) via the People management functionality, then the driver's name will appear in the lap time list. If not, the name is displayed as "TR #######" (where ####### equals the transponder number).

Transponder details (Name, Car Number, Category etc) can be displayed (and managed) by right clicking on the transponder in the lap time list, and clicking the 'EDIT this Practice Entry record?' menu.



If transponder details have already been set up, the pop up form will direct you to manage the details using the People page functionality (3rd main menu from the top).

If the transponder details are blank, then the Edit Practice Entry pop up form will present a list of existing entries to choose from. Alternatively, a new user can be created by clicking the 'New Entry' button.



Once the transponder details are filled in, click the Save button and the transponder details will be saved and displayed in the lap time list.

NOTE: lap time list will refresh the next time a transponder crosses the timing loop.

Round Roll Over
Controls the lap time (in seconds) at which a free practice session (round) automatically rolls over for each individual transponder. The default time is 120 seconds. This means if a transponder records a lap time greater than or equal to 120 seconds, then the Round count will be incremented for that transponder.

To set this value, simply click and drag the slider bar to the desired value (between 0 and 120).

Each session (round) is can be printed separately, and if all sessions are printed in one report, then each session is separated by a grey dividing row.

Announce Laptimes
Turn this on (tick box) to have the system announce the lap time, as each transponders cross the timing loop.

Clear All Laptimes
Click this button to manually clear all lap times, and RESET the session (round) count.

Auto Clear All Laptimes
Turn this on (tick box) to enable the time at which all lap times and decoder passings will be automatically cleared. This feature is provided so Free Practice can be turned on and left running unattended. Periodically clearing lap times is recommended so transponder session (round) counts are reset within a 24 hour period.

Remove In-active
Controls the time (in seconds) at which an in-active transponder is removed from the lap time list screen. In-active transponder lap times and session (round) counts are not removed. This feature provides a means to prevent the lap time list from becoming cluttered with transponders that are no longer on track.

To set this value, simply click and drag the slider bar to the desired value (between 0 and 1800).

Min Lap Times
This setting determines the minimum lap time cut off. If a transponder crosses the timing loop with a time less than this value, then the lap will be ignored. This feature provides the ability to protect against racers short cutting the track.

Printing Free Practice Laptimes
To print Free Practice lap times, either right click on a transponder in the lap time list, and then click the 'Print this Entry's Practice Laps?' menu... or click the 'Print Practice Laps' button.



Three print options are available on the Print Practice Laps pop up form:

Print Selected - choose a transponder from the list and click this button to print individual session (round) lap times, or All session lap times for the selected transponder.



Print Seed Report - Used to produce a report that lists transponders in order of their best X consecutive laps (where X is a lap count value between 1 and 5). This report can be used to seed drivers into heats based upon their Free Practice lap times.



Print All Un-printed Laps - This report will list all laps for all transponders that have not already been printed. Each time this button is clicked, the current session (round) lap times are listed for printing, and are marked as being printed. Each transponder's current session (round) is then incremented. The next time this button is clicked, only new lap times for new sessions (rounds) are listed.

NOTE: "Print Selected" lap time reports (mentioned above) can be used at any time - even if the laps have been marked as printed by the "Print All Un-printed Laps" functionality.