Laps are counted as visits, not as reads. A mat reads a chip six times a lap. Podium collapses anything arriving close together into one visit, so six reads a second apart are one lap.
The setting that decides "close together" is the lap gap. It defaults to two minutes. On the website the same thing is the timing point's gate — see Timing points.
Everybody has far too many laps
The gap is shorter than the time somebody spends near the mat, so one pass is being counted several times. Raise it.
Everybody has too few laps
The gap is longer than a real lap, so two laps are being swallowed into one. Lower it.
It must stay shorter than your fastest lap. That is the whole rule. A gap long enough to swallow a lap will also drag the first lap into the start, which moves that rider's start time to when they came back round.
One rider has an extra lap
Look at the reads for that number first, and which points they are on (The raw reads, and changing a result by hand). It is nearly always one of three things, and they have different fixes:
- Two mats close enough that both caught them. If the second box is only there to watch, set it on the timing point as
Watching it — never a crossing. Its reads stop counting and the laps recalculate. See Timing points. - A lap mat that also covers the start line. The start is being counted as a lap. Name the start and the lap as separate points, in the order the race meets them.
- They really did go over the mat an extra time — rode back round, or crossed to warm down. The reads are right about what happened.
For the third case, exclude the extra read on the website: Raw data, Chip times, filter Who to their race number, and exclude the read that should not count. You are asked why, the read stays on record marked excluded, and put back undoes it. The lap count recalculates. See The raw reads, and changing a result by hand.
If it is still being decided, mark the rider Query in the meantime — that keeps the result off the public page.
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