Race Day Operations Guide

This guide covers the full race day workflow: checking in racers, scheduling heats, running the race, and viewing final standings.

Note

Prerequisite: Your roster should already be set up before race day. See the Race Setup Guide if you still need to add racers or configure dens.

Race Day Overview

On race day, two operators typically work side by side:

Role	Primary Page	What They Do
Check-In Operator	Roster	Verifies cars passed inspection, records car weight, adds photos
Race Control Operator	Race Control	Schedules heats, starts heats, records results
Audience / Spectators	Observation	View live standings and currently-racing heats

The check-in and race control functions can be handled by the same person for smaller events, or split across two devices for larger packs.

Part 1: Check-In

Opening the Check-In View

Check-in happens on the Roster page — the same page used to manage the roster before the event. On race day, you work through the racer list and mark each car as inspected before it races.

Race Details with Check-In Status The Roster page at the start of race day. Every racer has a gold Check In button in the Status column; it turns green and reads Checked In / Edit once they are through.

Checking In a Racer

Find the racer in the list. Scroll, or use the search box above the roster — it matches on name, car number, and den.
Click the Check In button at the end of their row to open the check-in form. It opens with the Car Weight (oz) field already focused — on a phone, the numeric keypad is what comes up, not the letter keyboard.
Enter the car's weight. If the race has a weight limit set, the box turns red and says so when the car is over it.

This is a warning, not a refusal — you can still check the car in. The inspector at the table decides what happens next; the app is only making the rule visible at the moment it matters. There is a small tolerance for the last decimal place, where desk scales disagree — see the weight check for exactly how close is close enough. 4. Check the Passed Inspection / Checked In toggle. It starts on — clicking Check In already says what you intend, so the form defaults to matching it. Turn it off only if this particular car fails inspection; the button below relabels itself to Save without checking in the moment you do, so it never claims to check in a car it isn't. 5. Click Save Check-in. On a phone or a tablet, the weight field, the toggle and this button are all on screen together with nothing to scroll past. 6. If you also need to change the racer's name, car number or den, update the Car Name or Home Pack, or flag the car as "Racing, not ranked", open the Details section below the Save button. If you need to upload or capture a Racer Photo or Car Photo, open Photos the same way — each has an Upload File button and a Camera button. Both sections are already open on a tablet or a laptop and collapsed on a phone, where there usually isn't anything to change there.

Check-In Modal — Inspection Toggled On The check-in modal for a racer, opened from the roster's Check In button — weight and "Passed Inspection / Checked In" come first, with Details and Photos below.

Check-In Modal — With Photo A racer photo loaded in the check-in modal's Photos section. Photos appear on the live audience display during the race. Once a photo is on file, a ⟳ Rotate / Recrop button appears beneath it — see below.

Racer List After Check-In After saving, that racer's button turns green and reads Checked In / Edit. Clicking it again reopens the same form.

Straightening a Photo

Photos taken at the check-in table are rarely framed well — snapped sideways, off to one side, or with the car lost in a corner of the shot while table clutter fills the rest. Every racer and car photo can be rotated and recropped right in the browser, with no need to retake the picture.

A photo taken with the Camera button goes straight into this step after you tap Capture — straighten and crop it before it is ever attached to the racer.
A photo already on file — uploaded from disk, or captured earlier — gets a ⟳ Rotate / Recrop button beneath it. Click it to reopen the same tool on the existing photo.

Cropping keeps what it cuts off, so a tight crop can always be loosened later. The app keeps the original photo alongside whatever you crop it down to — clicking ⟳ Rotate / Recrop reopens the tool on that original, with your last crop and rotation already in place, rather than on the already-cropped result. Drag the box back out and the parts you cropped away the first time are right there, waiting. The one exception: a photo uploaded before this existed has no original on file yet, so its first recrop starts from the picture as it is today — from that point on, it has one too.

Crop and Rotate Tool The crop tool open on a car photo already on file. The blue box is the crop, with a gold handle at each corner to resize it; everything outside it is dimmed. Drag the box to reposition it. The two rotate buttons and the Keep original / Save changes buttons sit below.

Drag the crop box to reposition it, or drag a corner to resize it — the arrow keys nudge it a little at a time. ⟲ Rotate left / ⟳ Rotate right turn the photo a quarter turn, carrying your crop along with it rather than discarding it, so cropping first and straightening second works exactly as well as the other way round. A racer's own portrait crops to a square, matching the round photo used elsewhere in the app and on the pit pass; a car photo crops to a wider, landscape shape. The two buttons read differently depending on which door you came in: straightening a photo you just took with the Camera button, click Use this photo to keep the result or Cancel to retake it; reopening the tool on a photo already on file through ⟳ Rotate / Recrop, click Save changes to replace it with your edit or Keep original to leave it as it was. Escape does the same as Cancel / Keep original either way.

All of this happens in your browser — nothing is uploaded until you confirm the crop, so a shot you decide not to use never leaves the device.

Scanning a Check-In Code

If you printed check-in codes (see the Printables guide), click Scan above the roster, hold a code up to the camera, and that racer's check-in form opens straight away — no searching a list of sixty.

There is a Car number box under the viewfinder for a creased code or a camera that will not focus.

Note

Scanning needs Chrome or Edge. In Safari and Firefox the panel opens without a viewfinder and the car number box is the way in — check-in is otherwise identical.

Tracking Check-In Progress

A checked in count sits beside the Racer Roster heading — "43 of 60 checked in" — so the question the room keeps asking can be answered without scrolling a list and counting buttons. It updates as check-ins land, including ones done on another device.

The Status column shows where every racer stands: a green Checked In / Edit button once they are through, a gold Check In button until then. Click the Status / Edit header to bring everybody still to come to the top. Turn on Group by Den to work through one den at a time, which is usually how families arrive.

Racer List Showing Inspection Status The roster part-way through check-in — green for done, gold for still to come, and the count beside the heading saying how far there is to go.

This view is behind the check-in desk's own screen, though — nobody else in the room can see it. Put it up where families can, instead: assign a screen to the Check-in progress view from Displays, and the same question ("is my car through yet?") is answered by looking at the wall rather than asking the desk.

A second screen with the QR code view up at the entrance turns "here's our website, look us up later" into everyone having the live standings on their own phone before check-in even finishes.

Uploading Photos in Bulk

If a photographer takes portraits or car photos before the race, you can upload and assign all of them at once using the Upload Photos button — without opening each racer's check-in form individually.

When to use this: After a pre-race photo session where you have a folder of racer or car images to associate with the correct racers.

Upload Photos is in the ⋯ menu at the top right of the roster, between Manage Dens and Print….

Click ⋯ at the top right of the roster and choose Upload Photos.
The Upload & Assign Photos modal opens. Click Choose Photos and select one or more image files from your device.

Empty upload modal The modal before any photos are selected. Click "Choose Photos" to pick files from your device.

Each image uploads immediately and appears as a thumbnail card. The footer shows how many photos have been assigned so far.

Photos loaded in the modal Three photos loaded and ready to assign. Each card shows the filename, an assignment search box, and a Racer/Car photo toggle. The footer tracks progress ("0 of 3 uploaded photo(s) assigned").

Click the search box on a card and start typing a racer's name or car number. A filtered list appears as you type.

Combobox open showing full racer list Clicking the search box shows all racers sorted by car number. Scroll or start typing to narrow the list.

Typing in the assignment box The list narrows as you type, matching on car number as well as name. Click a name to assign it, or use the arrow keys and press Enter; if nothing matches, the box says so.

Use the Racer photo / Car photo radio buttons on each card to indicate what the image shows (default is Racer photo).
After assigning all photos, click Apply N Assignment(s) to save.

The Apply button and the assignment counter Two photos assigned and one still to go. Apply stays grayed out until at least one photo has a racer against it, and the footer beside it counts how many are ready.

Photos that are uploaded but not assigned to any racer are silently skipped — only photos with a racer selected are saved. Assignments can be applied at any time during or after check-in; the photos will be visible on the audience display during the race.

Tip

If an upload fails (for example, due to a slow network), a Retry link appears on that card. Other cards are not affected — you can assign and apply the successful uploads while retrying the failed ones.

Note

Photos can also be added individually through each racer's check-in form (see Checking In a Racer above). The bulk upload tool is most useful when photos were taken as a batch outside the app and you want to assign them all at once. A photo assigned this way has no rotate or crop step of its own — if one needs straightening, open that racer's check-in form afterward and use ⟳ Rotate / Recrop.

Part 2: Scheduling the Race

Navigating to Race Control

Once check-in is underway, the race control operator can move to the Race Control page to build the heat schedule. Click the Control link in the top navigation bar.

Race Control — Empty State The Race Control page before any rounds have been added. The readiness panel at the top is reporting the missing schedule; click "Start Round Creation Wizard" to begin.

The Readiness Check

Until the first heat has been recorded, a readiness panel sits at the top of the Schedule and Race tabs. It answers the four questions that otherwise only surface as an error at the start line:

Item	What it tells you
Timer	Whether the timer is connected and which model it reported. Check it opens the timer check page, which shows what answered and how well its support has been tested.
Check-in	How many cars are through inspection. Only checked-in cars are put into heats.
Schedule	How many heats exist.
Displays	How many audience screens are currently connected.

Red means you cannot run a heat yet; amber means you can, but something is worth a look — a queue still at the check-in desk, most often. Displays are reported in gray because having no audience screen is a choice rather than a problem.

Once nothing needs attention the panel collapses to a single line, and it disappears entirely as soon as a heat has been recorded — from that point the timer badge and the race execution screen report anything that goes wrong.

Understanding Rounds and Heats

Two terms, before building the schedule:

Heat — one race down the track: a handful of cars, one per lane, 10–30 seconds.
Round — a set of heats where every racer competes. By default, every racer races in every lane exactly once.

A typical derby is one qualifying round (everyone) plus one optional championship round (top finishers). More terms are in the glossary.

Creating a Round with the Round Wizard

The Round Wizard is the fastest way to set up your complete race schedule, including optional championship rounds. Click Start Round Creation Wizard to open it. It offers the same choices as Add Round — see Round styles and Championship rounds for the full rules behind each one.

Step 1: Qualifying Rounds

Choose How it's raced:

Everyone races in every lane — the default, and the fairest comparison. Choosing this also offers the Qualifying Round Type:
All Pack — Every racer races against everyone else. Best for events where den membership isn't important for heat grouping.
By Den — Racers race only against others in their own den during the qualifying round.
Elimination — lose too many heats and you're out. See Elimination Racing below.
Balanced — each round of heats matches cars doing about as well. See Balanced Racing below.

Set Runs per lane (default: 1, "Everyone races in every lane" only). Increasing this number means each racer runs in every lane more than once, which produces fairer averages but takes more time. Elimination and balanced rounds have their own count instead — losses before a car is out, or how many times each car races.

Round Wizard — Step 1 Step 1: "Everyone races in every lane" is the most common choice, and the most common format under it is "All Pack".

With "Everyone races in every lane" chosen, a second, collapsed choice appears: How heats are built. Click it to open it — most packs never need to. Partial Perfect Chart is selected by default and is the right choice for almost every field; the other two options (Lane rotation, Perfect-N) each show a one-line description of what they guarantee, and an option grayed out says why it can't be used for your current roster and track. See Scheduling algorithms for the full comparison.

Round Wizard — How heats are built "How heats are built," opened: Partial Perfect Chart is the default, and each option says what it guarantees.

Step 2: Championship Rounds (Optional)

Add one or more championship rounds. For each championship round, configure:

Round Name (e.g., "Grand Finals")
Which cars race: The fastest cars or The slowest cars — the latter is the Slowest Race bracket
Top performers from (Slowest cars from when racing the slowest): Overall or Each Den
Number to pick
Runs per lane for this round — the finalists race the whole round again for each run, which is worth it when a final is close enough that one heat should not decide it
I'll choose who races myself, to pick the line-up by hand instead of letting the standings decide

Click + Add Round to add more championship rounds if needed. Only the first championship round chooses a source; any round after it always draws from the championship round before it, and says so instead of offering a choice.

If step 1's qualifying round is Elimination, Each Den is not offered for the first championship round — an elimination round is never split by den, so there is nothing to draw a per-den field from. The final draws from the elimination round's own survivors instead, automatically: the top finishers of another round source the Add Round dialog offers by hand.

Round Wizard — Step 2 Step 2: configure optional championship rounds. Each round can advance a different number of racers, from either end of the standings.

Step 3: Review and Generate

The wizard shows an estimate of total heats and approximate run time — elimination and balanced rounds grow as results come in, so their heat count isn't part of that estimate. Review the schedule summary, then click Generate schedule to create all rounds and heats at once.

Round Wizard — Step 3 Review Step 3: the schedule preview shows total heats and estimated duration before you commit.

Viewing the Schedule

After generating, the Schedule tab lists each round in turn, one below the other. A round is a table with a row per heat and a column per lane, so reading across a row tells you who is in which lane.

Schedule Management View The full schedule after generation. Each round has its own table; a heat's row shows the racer in every lane, and picks up their finish times once it has been run.

Adding a Round Later

You do not have to decide everything before the wizard runs. Add Round, at the top of the Schedule tab, adds one more round at the end of the schedule — a qualifying round everyone races, or another championship round — offering the same choices the wizard's own steps do.

A championship round added here can draw its racers from the overall standings, from each den, or — once another championship round exists — from that round's results, which is how you get "top ten race a semifinal, top three of them race the final". If the round it draws from has already finished, the new round fills in with the qualifiers straight away; otherwise it fills in on its own the moment they are decided.

The three ways a qualifying round can be raced — every lane for everyone, balanced, elimination — are compared in Scoring & Championships, with the full rules in Round styles. Either one is reached from the Round Wizard's step 1 or from Add Round; the sections below show it from Add Round, since that is where a round is most often added once racing is already under way.

Balanced Racing

More children win a heat: after a random start, the winners race the winners, so the other heats are winnable.

Click Add Round and choose Balanced (or, in the Round Wizard's step 1, choose Balanced under How it's raced).
Pick how many times each car races. Once per lane is the usual advice and the default.
Run the heats on the screen. The next set appears by itself when they are done.

Add Round dialog set to balanced The Add Round dialog with Balanced chosen: pick how many times each car races and go.

Balanced schedule mid-race The schedule after the first round of heats: the next set has appeared, with the heat winners matched against each other.

Nobody is eliminated, everyone races the same number of times, and results count toward the standings as usual. A late arrival joins the next set. The full rules are in Round styles.

Elimination Racing

The classic "lose too many and you're out" — with no bracket drawn up front and nothing to reprint when somebody does not show up. The schedule grows a set at a time as results come in, so there is nothing to predict — only a record of what has already happened.

Click Add Round and choose Elimination — lose too many heats and you're out (or, in the Round Wizard's step 1, the same choice under How it's raced).
Pick how many losses a car is allowed. Three is a good default.
Run the heats on the screen. New sets appear by themselves, matching cars with the same record — the undefeated race the undefeated.
On the Schedule screen, click Chart view on that round to switch from the plain table to a set-by-set chart — who won, who lost, and who is still in it. It is a record, not a prediction: the next set is never drawn until this one has been raced.

A loss is any heat a car does not win — second place counts the same as fourth. The last car left wins, and the Standings page shows the round as a loss count, cars still racing listed first.

Add Round dialog set to elimination The Add Round dialog with elimination chosen: pick the loss limit and go — there is no bracket to manage.

Elimination standings The Standings page during an elimination round: losses instead of times, cars still racing at the top.

Elimination chart view The Chart view on the Schedule screen, after the round has been decided: every set that was raced, who won each heat, and who reached the loss limit where. The set after the last one is never drawn — there wasn't one.

Elimination heats stay out of the overall standings — an eliminated car races fewer heats, so no average over them is fair. The full rules, including late arrivals and what counts as a loss, are in Round styles.

The Slowest Race

A crowd favorite: after the serious racing, let the slowest cars have their moment.

Click Add Round and pick the Championship Round tab (or, in the Round Wizard, add a championship round in step 2).
Under Which cars race, choose The slowest cars instead of the fastest.
The round fills itself with the slowest cars, and runs like any other.

Add Round dialog set to the slowest cars The Add Round dialog with The slowest cars chosen. The round names itself "Slowest Race", and the pick count is free of the trophy minimum — a two-car turtle race is a fine turtle race.

Slowest Race standings, slowest car first The Standings page showing a Slowest Race round: the slowest car is listed first, because the last one down the track wins.

Cars that never recorded a time are left out, and the round's standings list the slowest car first — the details are in Championship rounds. Pair it with a judged award (like "Turtle Trophy") on the Awards tab if you want to hand out hardware for it.

Reordering Heats (Optional)

If you need to adjust the heat order before racing begins (for example, to separate siblings or accommodate a late arrival), drag a heat by the handle at the left-hand end of its row to move it within its round.

Note

A heat can only be moved while it has no times against it. Once a heat has been run its handle is grayed out; a heat you skipped can still be moved, because it has no times.

Heat Reordering Drag the handle at the left-hand end of a heat's row to reorder it within the round.

Tip

Print the running order once the schedule is settled. Heat sheet, beside Add Round, gives you a table per round with an empty column to write results into — the one thing that still works when the wifi drops. See the Printables guide.

Tip

Jumping Ahead: If you want to run a later heat immediately, click the Run button on that heat in the Schedule view. Trusty Track will automatically move it to be the next heat in the order and take you directly to the Race tab. This only works within the round you are on — Run is grayed out on a round that is still waiting for an earlier one to finish.

Running Several Dens at Once (Optional)

By default, each den races its own round as a block — the Lions straight through, then the Tigers, and so on — and the track sits idle between blocks while the next den's cars are collected and staged. If your pack has several dens racing the same event, Interleave heats across every den weaves every den's heats into one running order instead, so the next den is already staged while the current one races.

Tick Interleave heats across every den on the race form — edit the race from the Roster page if it already exists.
Build your rounds exactly as you would for any other race — one round per den, raced however you like.
On the Schedule tab, a Master running order panel appears above the per-round tables. Click Apply master order to weave the dens' current heats together.

Once applied, the Race tab and the audience displays follow the woven order — after a Lion heat the next heat offered is usually a Tiger heat, with its line-up already showing in On Deck. Any pending heat can also be run straight from the Schedule tab, whatever round it belongs to, and dragging heats within a round is switched off while the setting is on — a hand-reorder would pull that round out of the weave.

Nothing about how a den's own round is scheduled changes — only the order the heats run in. Full rules, including how a late arrival or a dead lane is folded into the running order without disturbing a heat already called, are in Running order across groups.

Part 3: Running the Race

The Race Execution View

Switch to the Race tab in Race Control to enter the race execution view. This is where heats are started and results are recorded.

The view is split into two columns:

Left (main area): The current heat. Its header shows the heat number and one status line — the heat's own phase (Ready, Racing…, Recorded) with the timer's state as muted text beside it — and a ⚙ button for this device's own preferences: a Cars/Faces picture picker and Auto-advance together at the top, then a divider, then Sound options… as a menu row below it — see Sound Options and Cars or Faces below. Racer names, lane assignments and results follow underneath, one line per lane. Below that, a footer holds the controls that act on this heat: Skip Heat and Override (or Enter Results on a track with no timer) before it runs, Edit and Re-Run after — and, on the right, Next Heat, always there but only clickable once a result has landed. Before a heat runs on a track with a timer, Override is a quieter button beside Skip Heat, for the rare case a result needs correcting by hand — overriding a timer's result is the exception, not the ordinary way a heat gets recorded.
Right (sidebar): On Deck — the next heat's lane-up, so those cars can be staged — with the round's progress below it and any later rounds after that. The progress panel shows an estimated finish time and pace for the round, which starts as a rough guess and gets more accurate as heats are actually recorded — it learns this event's own rhythm rather than assuming a fixed time per heat. Take a break sits in that panel's header — see Taking a Break below.

Both panels show the same kind of picture beside each lane — a car photo by default, or the racer's own portrait if you pick Faces — see Cars or faces below.

The Race Execution view showing the active heat with lane assignments. The On Deck panel beside it is the next heat, so those cars can be staged.

Starting a Heat

How a heat starts depends on your track timer:

With a hardware timer: Trusty Track automatically prepares the timer for the next heat. Place the cars on the track and release them as normal — the timer records finish times automatically.
With the fake timer (for testing without a physical track): A Fake Timer Controls panel appears below the current heat. Once the heat is staged the panel reads "Ready to start" — click Start Timer to send the cars off. The heat then finishes on its own a few seconds later, or you can click Finish Heat to end it immediately.
With no timer at all: nothing is armed, and the header's status line has no timer state to show — the main button on the heat is Enter Results, and hand entry is how every heat gets recorded. See No timer.

The Fake Timer Controls panel used for testing. "Start Timer" begins the run; "Finish Heat" ends it and records simulated times.

Race Execution on a track with no timer A track configured with no timer: no timer badge in the status line, and Enter Results stands where Override would on a track that has one.

Recording Results

When a heat finishes:

Hardware timer: Results appear automatically in the lane cards, showing each racer's finish time and placement.
Fake timer: Results appear when the run ends — either on its own a few seconds after Start Timer, or as soon as you click Finish Heat.
Manual override: Click Override (before the heat) or Edit (after) — or Enter Results on a track with no timer — to enter results by hand. Override is a quieter button than Skip Heat and Next Heat beside it, since it is meant for the exception — a false trip, a car that jumped a lane, a timer that missed a finish — not the ordinary way a heat gets a result; click it (or press E) to use it. A Timed, Cumulative time or Fastest single run race enters times, turned into places automatically on save. A Points race enters finishing order directly in a Place field; a Time field sits alongside it too, for correcting or clearing a time a timer recorded even though points scoring does not use it — the track's record board and stats still read it (see Scoring).

Heat Results After Finish After a heat completes, each lane shows the racer's finish time and placement (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.). The 1st-place racer is highlighted in gold.

The manual entry modal on a Points race A Points race's entry modal: the Place column is what gets typed in — the finishing order somebody at the line called out — and an optional Time column sits beside it for correcting or clearing a time a timer recorded.

On a Points race, a place can't be higher than the number of racers actually in the heat, and two lanes can't claim the same place unless their recorded times genuinely tie — Trusty Track checks this as you type and disables Save Results with an explanation until it's fixed, rather than letting you find out after the fact. And if two lanes on a Timed race record the exact same time, a note says so, and they legitimately share that place on the standings (1st, 1st, 3rd) rather than one of them arbitrarily coming out ahead. See Scoring for the exact rule.

A typed time can never be negative, and the same racer can never be entered in two lanes of one heat — either is refused when you click Save Results.

After reviewing results, click Next Heat to advance to the next heat — or enable Auto-advance to move forward automatically after 10 seconds.

Tip

The Auto-advance toggle is behind the ⚙ button in the active heat card's header. When on, Next Heat counts down and advances without any button click.

Keyboard Shortcuts

The race control operator usually has a microphone in one hand. Three keys cover the repetitive parts, listed here — most are also printed on the button they mirror, but not all; see below the table for which one isn't and why:

Key	What it does
Space	Move on to the next heat, once the current one is recorded.
E	Open the result editor — Edit after a heat, Override before one.
Esc	Cancel the auto-advance countdown.

They do nothing while you are typing in a box, while a dialog is open, or when held with Ctrl, Cmd or Alt — so correcting a car name never advances the race, and the browser keeps its own shortcuts. Space deliberately does not start a heat: on a real timer the gate is released by hand.

Only Next Heat prints its key on the button face — it is the action used every heat, worth teaching at a glance. Edit does too, since correcting a mis-read result is also routine once a heat is recorded. Override, the same key's pre-heat name, is the exception rather than the everyday path to a result, so it carries no printed hint — hover it, or just press E, and the same editor opens. On a phone or tablet there is no keyboard to press these on, so the printed hints don't show there either.

Sound Options

A single Sound options… row, behind the ⚙ in the heat card's header — below a divider, under the picture picker and Auto-advance — opens a panel of event sounds — a heat being staged, the gate release, the finish chime, a track record broken, the award ceremony fanfare — all behind one shared Enable sound effects on this device switch. Nothing plays until that switch is on, and the setting (like every sound below it) is remembered on that device only — your laptop can have it while the wall displays stay silent.

Each sound below the switch remembers its own on/off state independently, so turning one on does not turn any of the others on with it — you'll need the device switch on too before a sound you've enabled there will actually play. Checking a sound's own row plays it once, which is how you find out whether the machine is muted without waiting for the real thing to happen. The button itself shows a small speaker icon so you can tell at a glance whether sound is on for this device.

Cars or Faces

The current heat and On Deck both show a small picture beside each lane — either the car's own photo or the racer's portrait, whichever you've told this device to show. A Lane pictures picker in the same ⚙ menu as Sound options… offers two buttons, Cars and Faces; the two panels always show the same kind of picture, so picking one changes what that kind is everywhere on the screen at once.

Cars is the default. Staging heats out of parc fermé is a job done by matching a car in your hand to a picture, not a face — an announcer calling racers to the line wants faces instead, so if that's who is at this laptop, pick Faces. The setting is remembered on this device only, the same as the sound settings above: the operator's laptop and an announcer's tablet on the same race can each show what its own reader needs.

If the picture you've asked for isn't on file for a racer, the other one takes its place — a car photo when there's no portrait, or a portrait when there's no car photo — and a racer's initials stand in when neither exists.

Correcting a Result

If a timer result is wrong (for example, a photo-finish dispute or a false start):

Click Edit on the completed heat card.
Update the time for each lane as needed.
Click Save Results.

To completely re-run a heat, click Re-Run. Because this clears every lane's recorded time and place, it asks you to confirm first, naming the heat and how many lanes hold a result; confirming returns the heat to "pending" so it can race again, and takes you to the Race tab with that heat ready to arm — the same as clicking Run.

Correcting a qualifying time re-decides who advances. A championship round not yet raced re-fills itself; one already raced shows Line-up out of date instead, and the call is yours. Details in Championship rounds.

Skipping a Heat

Skip Heat passes over the current heat without racing it — for when every car in it has scratched, say. The schedule moves on, and the skipped heat can be run later with Run if the cars turn up after all.

Three things to know:

A skipped heat does not hold anything up. The round still finishes, and a championship round waiting on it still fills.
If your race is scored on points, the cars in a skipped heat are scored as if they finished last in it. Under Timed, Cumulative time, or Fastest single run, the heat simply is not part of anyone's score. See how skips are scored.
If a skipped heat is still sitting there when the round finishes, the Round Complete!/Race Complete! summary says so and offers a Run heat N button straight back to it. A championship round's field was already decided without that heat's real result, so if the cars did turn up after all, running it there re-decides who advances.

Viewing the Live Leaderboard

The leaderboard updates automatically after every heat. During the race you can check the current standings at any time from the Standings page in the top navigation bar, and the Stats page keeps count of the heats completed so far. The audience can follow standings live on the Observation page (see the Observation Displays Guide).

Stats Mid-Race The Stats page part-way through the race, with heats completed and lane fairness updating as results come in.

Taking a Break

Real race nights have real breaks — a snack table, a stuck sprinkler, the gap before the championship round starts. Take a break, in the Round Progress panel's header on the Race tab's sidebar, opens a popover with the presets (5, 10, 15 minutes, or a custom length). Starting one kicks off a countdown that every audience display picks up automatically: whatever a screen was showing switches to a full-screen countdown with the break's name and a faint preview of who races next, until the time runs out or you end it early.

If stored clips are turned on and the race already has one, the popover also offers Show replay highlights — every screen spends the break looping the current round's clips, fastest first, instead of the quiet preview. See Highlights during a break.

The same presets also appear on the Round Complete! summary, since a round finishing is exactly when a break is most often called.

While a break is running, the button itself shows the time remaining; click it to reopen the popover for three controls: +5 min to extend it, Pause/Resume to freeze and restart the countdown, and End now to clear it immediately. See Audience display views for what the wall displays show.

Part 4: Championship Rounds (Optional)

When the last qualifying heat is recorded, Trusty Track works out who has made the championship round and shows a summary of them. Click Start Next Round to move on. The summary appears because a championship round was waiting to be filled — if you did not configure one, there is nothing to decide and no summary appears.

The championship round schedule is generated automatically based on who qualified — only the top racers from the qualifying round are included. How the racers are chosen, what happens when a time is corrected afterwards, and what happens if a qualifier leaves early are all in Scoring & Championships.

The summary shown when a championship round's racers are decided When a championship round's racers are decided, the summary lists who made it, with their scores.

Run the championship heats the same way as the qualifying round. Championship results determine final placement.

Championship Round Schedule The Schedule tab once the qualifying round is complete — every heat has its times. The championship round, now filled with the qualifiers, sits below it.

Part 5: Final Standings

When the very last heat of the race is recorded, Trusty Track raises one more summary — Race Complete! — with buttons straight to the Standings page, the Awards page, and the results sheet, so you are not left staring at a finished heat with nothing to click. Closing it leaves you on the ordinary Race tab; every one of those destinations is also one click away from the top navigation bar at any time, including if you come back to this tab later — a race that finished before you opened the page does not throw this summary up on you again.

Coming back later — a phone at the track, or the next morning to print certificates — rather than to this same tab? The Home page's race list has Standings and Print actions in each row's ⋯ menu, right beside Roster and Edit race, so you do not need to open the roster first just to reach the results or the print hub. Each row also carries a small badge beside the race name — Not started, In progress or Finished — so you can tell at a glance which of last season's races still has heats to run without opening any of them.

After all heats are complete, the Standings page shows the final ranked results. Navigate there from the top nav bar.

The Standings page can be put on a large screen or projector so everyone can see the final results.

Print results, at the top of the Standings page, puts the standings and the trophy winners on one page for the noticeboard or the newsletter — see printables.

For the ceremony itself, use the Awards page instead. It holds the trophies you are handing out — the speed ones worked out from these standings, and the judged ones like Best Paint — and Present puts them on a projector one at a time, paced by whoever is holding the microphone.

If the race has a championship round, a selector appears above the table. Use it to switch between Overall (qualifying rounds) and any one championship round. A race with no championship rounds has nothing to switch between, so no selector appears. A Slowest Race round is shown slowest car first — the page says so above the table — because in that round the last one down the track wins.

Note

Overall standings cover the qualifying rounds only — a championship round's cars are picked from those standings, so a final's times never feed back into them. Championship results are shown by selecting that round. The full rules — what counts, what a tie means, why some rounds are left out — are in Scoring.

Final Standings Page The standings show rank, car number, name, den — with the den's category in parentheses when it adds something the den's own name does not already say, like "Wolves (Wolf)" — heats completed, and average time for every racer. A den whose category is just its own name again, which is what the setup wizard's ready-made dens start with, shows no parenthetical at all. The top three rows carry a gold, silver or bronze stripe against the Rank column and a medal beside the number — the row itself, and every name and number in it, stays plain text.

Note

A tie shares a rank — 1st, 1st, 3rd. Whether anything more gets decided is the race's Tiebreaker setting: left on the default, settle it yourself with a race-off — a Start run-off button appears against the shared rank — or a corrected time from the result editor; pick one of the other four and Trusty Track settles it wherever the tie actually matters — the last spot in a final, a speed trophy — reporting rather than guessing when the data cannot support an answer. See ties.

Once the results are final, lock the race — from the race's ⋯ menu on Home, or from Edit race — so nothing gets changed by accident on the way out the door — see locking a race.

Common Race Day Scenarios

A racer arrived late

Add them to the roster and check them in as normal. Checking them in is what puts them in the racing — there is nothing else to press.

A round not yet started is rebuilt with them in it.
A round part-way through keeps every recorded time; heats are added at the end for the newcomer.
A finished round is left alone — they start from the next round.

The full rules, including what a points race does about the extra heats, are in Changes in the middle of a race.

Tip

If somebody is checked in and shows No heats on the roster, they arrived after the round they would have been in had already finished. Create the next round and they will be in it.

A racer had to withdraw

Open their check-in entry and turn Passed Inspection / Checked In off. The schedule sorts itself out:

A round not yet started is rebuilt without them.
A round part-way through keeps every heat already run; their remaining lanes are emptied.
A finished round keeps their results.
A championship spot they held in an unraced round goes to the next qualifier.

If it was a mistake, check them back in — they get their place back. Details in Changes in the middle of a race.

A timer result came in wrong

Click Edit on the completed heat in the Race Execution view to manually correct any time value. If the entire heat needs to be re-run, click Re-Run and confirm — it clears all results and takes you to the Race tab with that heat ready to arm.

We need to run a practice heat that doesn't count

Use Free Race. A free race heat runs on the timer and appears on the audience display like any other, but it is invisible to standings, schedules, championships and statistics — so it cannot disturb the event.

It is the right tool for a shake-down run before doors open, a parent's or sibling's car, a demonstration for a scout who wants to see the track work, and the fun heats at the end.

From Race Control, switch to the Free Race view and choose who is in each lane. Random fills the lanes from the checked-in roster, which is usually what you want for an impromptu run; Manual lets you pick each lane by hand, and lanes may be left empty; Anonymous names nobody, keeping each time against the lane — for testing the track, or for cars that are not on the roster. Run it exactly as you would an official heat.

See the Free Race guide for the full walkthrough.