Join the ISSA 25 cone series. One cyber race every second month!

Regular sessions allow newbies to join our community and discover slalom racing.

Pat Chewning

Chris Barker (and others): The proposed World Ranking system is supposed to work like this: 1) Before the season starts, contests are anounced. 2) The organizers of those contests are supposed to make "bids" or "cases" as to why their contest should be awarded a certain status. 3) Through some autho...

Pat Chewning

Here are some pics from the race in Seattle May 23. Dan Huges attacking the course: <img src=http://www.slalomskateboarder.com/events/2004/CascadeII/Dan_Hughes.jpg> Gareth Roe vs Steven King. Two different push-start styles: <img src=http://www.slalomskateboarder.com/events/2004/CascadeII/Roe_vs_Kin...

Pat Chewning

JG:

http://www.alpha-american.com/signs.html

http://www.ams-e.com/AlphaGraphiques1_e.html

These can be networked together on RS-485 .

I don't think a little laptop display is good for displaying info to spectators and racers.

-- Pat

Pat Chewning

Relatively inexpensive LED scrolling displays are available. It would be really nice if the racer's time and cones were instantly displayed for spectators and racers to view. I have purchased a used display on EBAY and will experimentally interface to it so that racer name, time, cones will be displ...

Pat Chewning

You've run the 1st run, now you are running the 2nd run. Chronocone allows you to swap lanes for the selected racers who are ready to go. But you have to do this for each racer pair as they are selected. It would be convenient if a "swap all" function were available so the entire list of racers was ...

Pat Chewning

The choice of background colors and text color/font/boldness makes some fields difficult to see when operating in bright sunlight. Of course, we rarely get bright sunlight here in Oregon, so I just noticed this now. Proposal: Change text and background to provide more contrast. 6/18/04 -- Fixed in R...

Pat Chewning

Chronocone always outputs data from both lanes, even if only one is being used. This is a minor hassle as 1/2 of the data needs to be thrown away when running a single-lane race. Sorting by LANE makes deleting the data easy. This is a low-priority feature that probably won't be added since it's so e...

Pat Chewning

The output file from Chronocone can be viewed in Excel by a click of a button. The file opens in "read-only" mode for viewing. Sometimes it would be nice to open the file for editing, to correct some info, delete an aborted run, etc. The problem would be if the file were left open in Excel while Chr...

Pat Chewning

The cone count entry is a list box that has cones from 0 to 25 cones. As you scroll, the # of cones is shown in the list box. However, to actually enter the # of cones, the value in the list box must be clicked. There is a potential that people could miss the correct entry of the # of cones by faili...

Pat Chewning

Chris Barker found out that Chronocone does not work on his computer running under Win98.

Proposal: Change documentation to remove Win98 as a supported OS

Fixed in V4.0 documentation

Pat Chewning

All of the Cascade races have used variations on this type of system.

It works pretty well because racers know the conehead rules and what to watch for.

-- Pat

Pat Chewning

I hadn't thought about exactly WHERE the USA would be divided EAST/WEST. Until there is a race anounced near the border, I guess it doesn't matter. In the mean time: Some arguments for St Louis being in the East USA: 1) It is east of the geographic center of the continental USA (located near Lebanon...

Pat Chewning

Under the guidelines that Corky has outlined, the term "MAIN" is a higher status than "PRIME".

Does this change your proposal, Joe?

-- Pat

Pat Chewning

Looking at the races for the Western USA, I think this makes sense: Class Race State Date Major World Championships Morro Bay (Am Cup) CA 8-Oct Main US Open - Breckenridge (American Cup) CO 20-Aug Main La Costa (American Cup) CA 24-Jul Prime Hood River - Gorge Games (American Cup) OR 10-Jul Prime Bi...

Pat Chewning

Cascade Slalom Association races in Portland, Seattle, Salem, etc do not charge a fee. These are local races supported by local vendors (Roe, Insect, Daddies Board Shop)

Pat Chewning

Racing on the street might cost more than racing in a park or other "protected" area.

A park would already be separated from traffic.
A park would already have bathrooms.
A park might be free for recreational uses.

My impression (might be wrong) is that the Paris event is in a park?

-- Pat

Pat Chewning

Small local races should have low fees. For those big races where people travel from long distances, the fees can be higher. In comparison to airline tickets, hotel, car rental, and meals, the entry fee at the World Championships was nothing. I find it amazing that the folks organizing the big Paris...

Pat Chewning

Last year about this time I contacted the local high-school ski race coaches to try to drum up some interest in slalom skateboarding. I had no success. (I was a former ast coach of the ski team for a local school.) This year, I was contacted by one of the racers who, along with 4 of his friends, has...

Pat Chewning

Here's how I secured a good slalom practice spot at work: 1) Observe new construction of courtyard -- nice wide concrete paths around basketball court. 2) See how little it gets used. 3) Somebody leases a "Segway" human-transport vehicle and allows anyone to use it if they watch the training tape an...

Pat Chewning

I'll be doing more local races in Oregon/Washington

I will travel to one race. Last year it was FCR Worlds in Morro Bay. This year it will be US Open in Breckenridge.

Gas price has little to do with it. Vacation time is limited, so if I can get it local, I won't be traveling.

Pat Chewning

In some races, a false start needs to be signaled immediately so the race can be aborted and re-started. Using version 3.0, the race organizer would have to monitor either the "reaction time" or the "DQ" setting to see if a false start happened, then activate a signal to the racers. We would like to...

Pat Chewning

In Chronocone 3.0 if you select a small number of tones, you don't get the right result. Select 2 tones: One count-down tone and then GO tone -- this is correct. Select 1 tone: One count-down tone and then GO tone -- this is wrong. Select 0 tones: One count-down tone and then GO tone -- this is wron...

Pat Chewning

It has been suggested that a "surprise" start tone would be more useful to force racers to start simultaneously (rather than the cadence tone count-down). The proposal is to add a start option which is not preceded by any tones. A single tone sounds at an indeterminate time and starts the race, simi...

Pat Chewning

We held our season warm-up event on the Salem Oregon Soap Box Derby hill ( www.salemsbd.org ) We will be holding our 100-cone race there on Sunday June 20th 2004 This hill is excellent and is already spawning a group of eager local slalom racers. The hill is in a public park, so it is available at a...

Pat Chewning

Pat Chewning

I really liked this poster:

From the event:
http://www.slalomskateboarder.com/event ... ntest.html

Pat Chewning

I think it would be a great idea to collect the various posters for each race here for people to display or print. Some of the posters this year are really pretty good, as were some last year. Some of my favorites from the past: "High Peaks Drifter", Tunnel Slalom So if you are a race organizer or t...

Pat Chewning

How do I get some of these?

-- Pat

Pat Chewning

Chronocone Version 3.0 Symtom: You start up the program without the hardware connected. Then you plug in the hardware. There is no feature in the program to re-check for the hardware, so it never recognizes it. Work-Around: Exit the program. Plug in the hardware. Re-start the program. Or always reme...

Pat Chewning

We have the switches and the timing. Why not add a feature where the distance between switches can be entered and then an average speed computed on-the-fly. This would be particularly useful for single-lane downhill or GS courses where the normal 2 switches could be used for the course timing (and a...

Pat Chewning

Rev 3.0 of Chronocone When running a race sometimes in the rush to get things wired up, the right lane tape switch might be wired to the left lane. Instead of forcing the crew to re-wire or physically swap the right and left lane switches, why not have an option under Chronocone to assign the meanin...

Pat Chewning

Symptom: A START followed quickly by a STOP will give an erroneous value for the "Reaction Time" if the START/STOP happens before the "GO" tone when running a common-start race. Work-Around: A normal skateboard race is not likely to see this event, since the racer would have to start the race on the...

Pat Chewning

Found by: Pat Chewning Software Rev 3.0 Symptom: Under certain conditions, it will take 2 pushes of the RESET button to clear everything to 0 for the next race. This happens when using one of the features to automatically enter a DQ for a racer (e.g. starting too early or exceeding a certain cone co...

Pat Chewning

Is this in relation to computer-based timing systems?

Pat Chewning

I really only have one question, why don't you switch from using a USB to using the COM port like the EttSexEtt timer. This way you wouldn't have to buy and modify the game controllers, instead you'd need 5ft of wire and a 9pin connector for a buck or 2. And if you still give the software away for ...

Pat Chewning

Good to hear that there's a big race in Vancouver tomorrow night.

Didn't see this on any of the calendars, so its a big surprise.

Are there more planned?

Pat Chewning

Chronocone 2004 is compatible with Trackmate wiring, but it probably won't work to simultaneously connect both systems to the same wires and tape switches. (Might be a good experiment to try). The flow is like this: 1) Tape switch 2) Telephone wire 3) Goes to custom circuit board for noise immunity ...

Pat Chewning

Six game pads gave up their lives today to become components of Chronocone 2004 slalom race timing units. Chronocone 2004 -- coming to a race near you. http://www.slalomskateboarder.com/Stuff/TimingSystems/Chronocone/Chronocone_0.jpg http://www.slalomskateboarder.com/Stuff/TimingSystems/Chronocone/C...

Pat Chewning

Over the winter I finished development of a timing system for slalom races. The goals of this project were: 1) Compatible with Trackmate wiring. This allows one set of wires to use either Trackmate or Chronocone. Now you can have a backup system ready to plug in right away. Use your same tape switch...

Pat Chewning

I just finished up some 8mm axle upgrades to 4 trucks today in the machine shop at work. I faced the hangers square to the axles, turned some 8mm axles, pressed them into the hangers. 3 of 4 are true as can be. The 4th one has a slight bend to the axle when it is pressed into the hanger, but not whe...

Pat Chewning

Jack: That's cheating to use your knowledge of the wind and thermal cycles to gain an advantage over the rest of the group! Waiting for the right cycle before launching ... what do you think this is -- a hang-gliding contest? Pretty soon, you'll be watching for swallows feeding on insects to pick th...

Pat Chewning

Erin, If the weather is good we will have some cone action on the weekend in Portland Oregon. Not a race, but just some of us getting together for practice. If you send me your email, I can put you on our email distribution list where we send out info on upcomming practices and races in the Seattle ...

Pat Chewning

Let's come back to the real world, the subject of this post is: do you think a lot of riders will fly from Europe with the risk of being arbitrarily treated like **** by airport customs agents who think they are playing in "Texas Ranger", and then to fly back on their own charges, for leisure ? Whe...

Pat Chewning

Rich, I am a mechanical engineer and I also skateboard. I have designed moving machinery using bearings, but I am not a "bearing engineer". In the skateboard application, a spacer is needed to keep the inside races of the bearings from being compressed out of alignment with the outside races. This i...

Pat Chewning

John, it was supposed to be DUAL sport champion, not DUEL sport!

Dueling with trees is almost always a losing proposition -- I know.

I hope they are making you feel comfortable in the hospital with the right meds and that you have a speedy recovery.

-- Pat

Pat Chewning

And that explain the case we are talking about (putting a young guy in jail because he was irritated being hasseld by a stupid stewardess). Actually, he is not in jail because he was irritated. He is in jail because he chose to use a bomb threat (or a joke about a bomb) as his method of expressing ...

Pat Chewning

Local Grass Roots races in the Northwest USA (Oregon and Washington). Competitors earn points throughout the series for an overall champion to be crowned in September. Our sponsors are Daddies Board Shop and Roe Racing There are 5 planned races: April 25 2004 Dual Hybrid Slalom -- Ridgefield WA May ...

Pat Chewning

As in most cases, there's more than 1 side to the story. Here's a different view of what led to this person's arrest. If it is true, then the authorities did the right thing (in my opinion). If you are not going to act like this, then there should be no problem travelling.... ================= A HOL...

Pat Chewning

I would reword this: "In the present situation, all travelers to the USA (from Europe, Asia, France, wherever) should be sensitive to the heightened security measures in effect, and should not under any circumstances say the word "bomb" while in an airport or in an airplane. and it applies to a fre...

Pat Chewning

Listen, i think you guys are a bit emotional Let's stick to facts: if i refer to a very precise statistic from Michael Moore, the objective risk for an american civilian to get caught in a terrorist attack of any kind has been inferior during the last two years to the risk of getting a meteorite fa...

Join the ISSA 25 cone series. One cyber race every second month!

Regular sessions allow newbies to join our community and discover slalom racing.

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