The other way you could go is based on the other timing system we used to have, which was ran on an Apple Mac computer. We used this for multicar flying laps. The electric beam was hooked through the mouse port & a program that we ran would record those 'mouse clicks' & note the time on the computers internal clock that the click took place. you then manually put the car's number against all the clicks for that car, hit the enter & it would calculate the lap times by subtracting the first time from the second etc. The program would then take that information, record it, & print out a time slip that would be printed on a small docket printer. The info on the print out included the lap times just done, your best lap so far, the best lap time in your class, your place in the class, your place in your club, & your outright position.
We stopped using this because we could only record 6 cars over 3 flying laps & everybody wanted to do 8 cars over 4 flying laps.
Something similar could be done if somebody could write program so the mouse clicks were given the time & the calculations were done on a modern PC, with windows or such. I do know that at the last supersprint i did with the NSWRRc they had a similar timing system using stick on transponders, but i wasn't going to pry too much as timing keeping is stressful enough without people wanting to ask questions. Two start beams could be used, like the drags, with both beams assigning 'mouse clicks', then the finish line being one light that clicked twice. you'd just have to record what order they went over the line & ask who left the line first, then assign the car numbers. You could easily have two pairs or more on the track. Dead heats could be decided by duplicating the 'mouse click', then giving each the different number. We had this ability with our timing, if two cars went pasted the light together, we duplicated & neither driver was terribly disadvantaged. Maybe there's a commercial program available, probably for windows & all you do is add the necessary hardware.

Very interesting comments!! My father is into this type of stuff. I might plant a seed in his mind to see what he might come up with. I'd would be nice to travel back there next time with some timing gear and say "here you go!!" and give it to the club for nix.

When i was a member of Liverpool District Motor Club, our Electronic timing system consisted of two beam of light, one for the start the other for the finish & a good quality digital stop watch. The start signal was set up to trigger the stop watch when it was broken, then the finish beam stopped the stop watch. this was for a single car at a time, but it was used to time state hillclimb championship rounds. I know the distance between the start & finish lines is extreme, but a radio signal could be used to send one of the impulses, or if you always use the same start & finish areas, you could get the local Telstra guys to hard wire it in. You could use 2 stop watches on the condition that the first breaking of the team stopped the first watch, & the second breaking of the beam stopped the second one. Or you get the car that lined up on the left hand side of the road to finish to the left hand side of the track & the right handed car to the right hand side. Put it in a fancy box with a switch to turn some trafic lights from red to green & back (single pole, double throw, centre off switch) & an orange light that goes off/on when the car breaks the staging beam & then is pushed back slightly. so cars come up to the start line, break staging beam, are pushed out of light beam, Somebody flicks switch from red to green, when cars break start beams the stop watches start, flick switch back to red so next pair know not to start, when cars cross the finish line the stop watches finish. Somebody records the times on a sheet or into a computer, then reset stop watches for the next run. 2 stop watches, some wiring & some sort of logic circuit that stops first one watch, then the other & some light beams, reflectors & bulbs, plus a couple of car batteries to power the lights. Maybe there are some electronics experts who can help you. Remember it has do deal with rain, wind & sleet, plus scorching hot days. You could even use it for khanacrosses to make it a better investment.

yeah guys it really is something that cruels everybody. we had light gate timing arranged for the hillclimb, but the lazy bugger didnt even turn up so it was a last minute scramble because we needed more officials for the start and finish of runs plus wiring the radio up so that we didnt have interference through the hills. as for the supersprint its a bit hard with the two cars to have the light gate setup.
for the australian esses hillclimb we had light gate starts and even had split timing so that was really good. but also expensive.
every single meeting we go to a new timing system is discussed, but with such large running costs due to the city council, ambulance, road closure and general costs all taking a turn, even with a $120 entry fee the club doesnt see any profit until the competitor list grows to over 80, it just costs so much and puts the club in a hard position.
with the new club motorkhana/khanacross/club rally grounds only being just purchased it is also running us into a bit of a money corner, even with most of the members doing most of the work in working bee's

bottom line it sucks, but there really isnt a whole lot the club can do about it unfortunatly

Agreed I was talking to one of the club officials about electronic timing they only use that for state events Apparently the hire is rather expensive. It would be good to have it for all events as you say times could be at least a second or 10 either way with the handheld timing and flag droping!! I think some electronic timeing would be a good wise investment for the club. Its not as if entry is cheap. Ill bring it up again at the next club meeting if I can make it.
Cheers Andrew

Yeah, all timing at BLCC events should be taken with a grain of salt especially after the Bennygate incident a couple of years ago
If the event wasn't at bathurst you wouldn't go - 3 runs and the event run by a pack of hicks !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Give me Huntley any day
3 - 2 - 1- Go ..... what a joke.
We will have to get to an event at OP to really have a red hot challenge
Cheers

Ohhhh....What the...??

After my third run I got a time of 58.70, the record sheet I downloaded of the BLCC website says 59.70!! I think I've been jibbed!!! haha...geezzz

Thanks Simon - always good pics from you.
Appreciate the support !!!!
Cheers
P.S. Just looked at the results .....
ONLY time I have ever been able to beat the Carpenter brothers - and it took a two litre to do it

Saturday was all i could get by the time i entered, but doing 5500 in 5 gear through the kink was worth it. Pity i buggered the start on the first & last runs by getting 4th instead of second. Didn't get my last time but my 3rd was a 64, which isn't too far off the 1000. Won my class by being the only one in it. & somebody wanted to buy the truck, could have sold it in a second when all the power failed when i pulled over to buy a drink. Just turned out to be a loose battery cable from when the brakes were being fixed.

Thanks for putting the pic up Andrew!
Can't help but have a dig at the high tech boys ... you know we are just envious of all that HP
Catch up soon ...
Cheers