9 replies to this topic

[Rupertlt1]

Goodwood in the early nineteen sixties in the timekeepers box.

The timekeepers are sitting in a row with their assistants. Mostly men.

Typically a timekeeper has an array of watches. 

He also has a comptometer, a calculating device with kepypad and a crank handle.

(In the 'real' world most comptometer operators were women.)

At the end of each race he would vigorously crank the handle.

What function did this machine perform? Total race time?

The comptometer was produced by Felt & Tarrant Manufacturing Company of Chicago, Illinois.

Inventor: Dorr Eugene Felt (1862-1930).

Developed 1884. First model offered for sale 1887.

From 1961 Sumlock-Comptometer of Uxbridge, Middlesex. Factories at Uxbridge, Portsmouth.

Acquired by Rockwell 1973.

Although a brand name I think the word comptometer may have acquired a generic meaning, as in hoover, biro or xerox.

Did Burroughs Adding Machines also play a part?

All this suggests that the method of timing races hadn't changed significantly since the 1920s.

The only early reference to a comptometer I can find derives from Motor Sport, November 1924, Page 226:

Sutton Coldfield & North Birmingham Automobile Club. 

"All above calculations performed and checked by Comptometer Calculating Machine."

RGDS RLT

[Geoff E]

In the context you describe, calculating machines would have been used to calculate average speeds.

 

The type I remember was of the FACIT brand, still in use at the National Coal Board's research establishment in 1970.

 

Five years earlier, when I was at Imperial College, similar devices powered by electricity (to perform the handle turning) were in use.

 

Multiplication and division were performed by repeated addition or subtraction.

 

A short video on the use of a FACIT is here https://youtu.be/sQypnQN5yMo

[Rupertlt1]

FACIT being a Swedish company.

I imagine the manual machines persisted because timekeepers boxes lacked multiple electrical outlets?

There is an article about timekeeping in the The Autocar, 30 June 1961, Pages 1022-1024.

A photograph in the box at Oulton Park shows no discernible calculating devices. Ashtrays and thermos flasks.  

RGDS RLT

Edited by Rupertlt1, 01 September 2024 - 12:35.

[Vitesse2]

In the context you describe, calculating machines would have been used to calculate average speeds.

 

The type I remember was of the FACIT brand, still in use at the National Coal Board's research establishment in 1970.

 

Five years earlier, when I was at Imperial College, similar devices powered by electricity (to perform the handle turning) were in use.

 

Multiplication and division were performed by repeated addition or subtraction.

 

A short video on the use of a FACIT is here https://youtu.be/sQypnQN5yMo

Can't remember the make of them, but my newly-opened 1960s grammar school had a roomful of the things. Thirty of them all being hand-cranked in unison ...

[Rupertlt1]

I've just found this previous thread:

https://forums.autos...of-timekeeping/

 

Not racing, but early in 1954 John A Cooper writing in Autocar reported on a new automatic timing device used on a Chrysler during a record attempt at Indianapolis. A radio transmitter on the car emitted a signal which was picked up on a receiver in the timing box every time the car passed. The transmitter weighed approx 1 lb. measured 4x2x1 inches, ran off the car battery & didn’t need an aeriel, and was produced by an (unamed) American company. Cooper’s final comment "Perhaps the day of automatic timing is not far off"

 

This equipment was developed by Lee Evans of Evans Engineering Company in Indianapolis.

The Terre Haute Tribune, Mon, 25 Jan 1954, Page 9 

RGDS RLT

Edited by Rupertlt1, 01 September 2024 - 19:30.

[Geoff E]

Remember too, before  electronic calculators, the alternative was a slide rule which was only "good" for 3 significant figures, when lap and race average speeds demanded at least 4 figures.  The fact that the stated circuit length may have been out by a few percent didn't prevent average speeds being quoted with undue precision.

 

The original circuit at Cadwell was said to be three-quarters of a mile (average speeds being based on that estimation) but one newspaper report says "about seven tenths of a mile".  Measuring the circuit length on Google Earth suggests 0.67 miles.  Of course, it doesn't really matter.

[Vitesse2]

Some time ago Oliver Heal kindly sent me a copy of the RAC's General Competition Rules for 1939. This booklet is - in effect - identical to the AIACR's rules, slightly recast for a British audience. It set down the exact conversions and methods used by the international authorities, which crop up in the various rules. Since the RAC has added some local rules/clarifications and rearranged some sections the numbers don't match, so I have given both rule numbers.

 

Firstly: miles to kilometres and vice versa. The official advice was that it should be calculated to five decimal places: 'the mile shall be taken as 1.60934 kilometres and the kilometre shall be taken as 0.62137 miles'. RAC rule 31/AIACR rule 27.

Cubic capacity: 'for all calculations relating to the cylinder volume of engines, the symbol π will be regarded as equivalent to 3.1416.' RAC rule 43/AIACR rule 29.

Weight of a passenger: obviously this rule was mainly for trials and rallies, but presumably to stop people trying to get round the regulations by using children as passengers, the minimum weight 'with personal equipment' of a passenger is set at 132 lbs (60 kg). RAC rule 46/AIACR rule 41.

 

Road courses (circuits, sprints, hillclimbs) of up to 5 kilometres were to be measured 'along the centre line of the road by a qualified surveyor'. The method is not stated, but I guess it would depend on whether it was a straight road or not - a simple measuring chain would suffice for the former. For a course longer than 5km, then the distance was to be 'determined by means of the Ordnance Survey map of a scale not less than one inch to one mile.' That's a scale of 1:63360, which I don't think would have been particularly accurate, especially as the whole country was actually already mapped to a scale of 25 inches to the mile, although the six inches to the mile (1:10560) scale would have been the most practical - and of course we had no sprint or hillclimb courses here anywhere near that long. Presumably the second part of this rule was flexible for the various AIACR members, depending on the availability of local mapping and would have specified 1:50000 in most cases. RAC rule 87/AIACR rule 74. Up to 0.5% tolerance was allowed for inaccurate distance measurement for competitions where drivers were required to keep to a time schedule. RAC rule 88/AIACR rule 75.

Remarkably, shorter record run courses - for which times had to be accurate to a thousandth of a second - also had to measured to an accuracy of either one inch or one centimetre.

 

The two-volume book 'The Administration of Racing at Brooklands' goes into this in exhaustive detail!

 

Remember too, before  electronic calculators, the alternative was a slide rule which was only "good" for 3 significant figures, when lap and race average speeds demanded at least 4 figures.  The fact that the stated circuit length may have been out by a few percent didn't prevent average speeds being quoted with undue precision.

 

The original circuit at Cadwell was said to be three-quarters of a mile (average speeds being based on that estimation) but one newspaper report says "about seven tenths of a mile".  Measuring the circuit length on Google Earth suggests 0.67 miles.  Of course, it doesn't really matter.

A lot of published race reports in Britain of European races are notoriously wrong when the miles and mph figures are compared to the original kilometre and km/h numbers issued by organisers. Most journalists seem to have been quite happy just to use the approximation of either 'divide by 1.6' or 'divide by 8 and multiply by 5'. The longer the race, the worse the error! There's one in WB's book on Montlhéry which is spectacularly wrong - he multiplied a kilometre figure by 8 and then divided by 5, resulting in the mile figure being greater than the kilometre!

 

When Donington Park applied for its International licence it had to be remeasured to meet AIACR standards and it was discovered that the original circuit length had been wrongly measured, so all previous lap records were annulled.

[Rupertlt1]

Here is one for the rallyists:

1961 R.A.C 10th International Rally of Great Britain:

LONGINES

OFFICIAL TIMEKEEPING

on all the special stages by Longines punch-clocks.

(PRINTOGINES - CHRONOTYPOGINES)

"83 Controls with 83 clocks need nearly 400 VOLUNTARY helpers at points along the route?"

48 Controls, timed with clocks sent specially from Switzerland, record the time through thousands of acres of private property so kindly loaned by the Forestry Commission, circuit owners and others.

Another 200 VOLUNTARY helpers are needed for this job alone?"

So far, so good. But another supplier is also involved:

If you have a moment to spare whilst details are being checked at the control, just take a look at the time-stamping machine on the marshal's table.

These machines (there are fifty of them being used throughout the Rally), have been chosen on this and many other rallies because of their unfailing accuracy and reliability."

The National Time Recorder Company Limited

St. Mary Cray, Orpington, Kent

So how did all this work in practice?

Did the Longines clocks have a battery?

https://library.revs...ub-rally/381262

https://library.revs...ac-rally/444513

https://library.revs...ac-rally/424281

https://library.revs...ac-rally/457973

https://library.revs...ac-rally/458346

RGDS RLT 

Edited by Rupertlt1, 02 November 2024 - 09:47.

[RS2000]

The National Time Recorder Company Limited

St. Mary Cray, Orpington, Kent 

 

Very much the home territory of RAC Rally organiser (1959 onwards) Jack Kemsley. (real organiser, despite various RAC officials being listed as such).

 

Not sure how long printing clacks survived after 61 but it can't have been long. Sounds a dodgy process for timing special stages.

[RCH]

A little snippet on the subject of timekeeping. Whilst lunching a couple of years ago with some fellow members of Leicester Colleges Motor Club from more than 50 years ago I discovered that one of my old mates is responsible for timekeeping on the British Touring Car Championship, which he does from home. Progress....