Every time should be recorded two ways. Not because the equipment is unreliable, but because the one thing you cannot do after the event is watch the race again.
A missed read is recoverable if something else saw the same person. It is gone if nothing did.
The backups you already have, free
Every box keeps its own log. A box that times an entire race with nothing connected to it has still recorded the lot, and it can be pulled off afterwards. A dropped link is an inconvenience, not a loss — see Getting back reads you missed.
That means a box failing to connect is never a reason to stop the race. Let it read. Sort the link out afterwards.
A second box on the same line
Two boxes can cover one point. Add the second one and say which it is:
- Its reads are crossings — a genuine second mat, for a wide line or a busy one. Both count.
- Watching it, never a crossing — it records but never gives anybody a time.
Put a backup on the finish before you put one anywhere else. See Timing points.
A spotter box
A spotter never gives anybody a time, which is exactly what makes it safe to put anywhere. Its job is to see people. Put one before another point in the running order and it will back that point up, and it is what feeds a commentator without any risk of contributing a wrong result.
The human backup
Somebody writing down the finish order, on paper, is worth more than it sounds. It is the thing that rescues a race when a mat fails outright, and it costs one volunteer and a clipboard.
Two rules make it useful rather than decorative:
- Record the order, and record times if you can. Order alone rebuilds a result. Order plus a handful of times rebuilds it accurately.
- A typed time only ever fills a gap. It never overrules a chip read, deliberately — the box stamped the chip to the millisecond, and a person wrote down when they thought they saw somebody. See Typing a time in.
A phone video of the finish, running continuously, is the same idea with less work. Start it before the leader arrives and leave it running.
Before you pack up
Wait for the backlog to reach zero. That is the count of reads still waiting to reach the server, and packing up while it is counting down is how a race arrives at the office incomplete.
Then, and only then, take the line apart.
What this actually protects you from
The three that happen:
- A mat that quietly stopped reading. Nothing alarms, because a reader with a dead antenna reports no fault (The box is connected but nothing is coming through).
- A person whose tag was never going to be read — worn wrong, covered, or never issued (Where the chip goes on a competitor).
- A bunch finish where several people crossed in the same second and one of them was screened by the others.
None of the three is fixable at the time. All three are survivable if something else was watching.
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