Copyright 2001, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

By David Swarts

In past years at the Dunlop tire tests at Daytona International Speedway, lap times were gathered by walking around the paddock and actually requesting them from each rider’s crew. The system was “unofficial” to say the least as teams had been know to give less-than-accurate information in the past. At the 2001 Dunlop Daytona tire tests, times are still unofficial but much closer to fact than before. Timing monitors provide lap times for every rider, even differentiating between a rider’s “A” and “B” bikes, thanks to individually indentified AMA Pro Racing transponders on each bike.

“We wanted to test some new software,” said AMA Pro Racing’s Ken Rogers in the scoring tower at Daytona. “We can test the timing system back at the office, but then again we can’t. Here we have real bikes going around a real track. Bobby Lemming (AMA Pro Racing Starter and Equipment Manager) was driving down here (Florida) for the holidays already. So he just hooked up the Pro Racing trailer and brought everything down.”

Rogers said that the new software will improve the amount of information available on AMA Pro Racing’s website as well as work with a new wireless network system for the racetrack. Registration, technical inspection and scoring are now all on the same AMA computer network at races, so a rider’s information has to be entered into the system only once instead of multiple times are multiple locations. Rogers said that the hope is to sell remote receivers and the necessary hardware to teams so that they can also be on the AMA’s computer network at the track. Being on the network will allow teams to receive more information more quickly, including lap times for each rider from every session as well as weekend schedules, revised schedules, announcements, etc. After teams join the network (which Rogers, speaking at VIR last September, estimated to come with a $5000 price tag per team), AMA Pro Racing will provide network access to media representatives at the racetrack.

Rogers said that AMA officials hoped to run the new software at other winter road racing test sessions and ultimately have official, AMA-sanctioned tests.