Each transponder has a unique identifying number, that number is logged with the sanctioning body.
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Cheating a transponder is completely possible as I know it has been tried at the highest level of asphalt racing but while semi easy to do, there is one catch or problem. While I won't say how it is done, lets just say it's easy to mess up and have your car 3 seconds faster then anyone (yes it was done on a very large track like Daytona where lap times are more like a minute).
Using it for finish would be crazy and easily caught by the eye, however using it for qualifying could be gotten away with, if you don't overly reduce your lap time.
Well, hopefully not,for sure.
As far as the ID number mentioned above. The one issued to the car would have the corret ID, But I'm talking about a hidden one they would not find.
If caught doing this it sure would be a black eye for driver and team that might be hard to get rid of and they would not be popular with fans and drivers. A price to pay that hopefully keeps many from even trying to cheat.
"What's to stop an illegal transponder from being activated before the finish line at the front of the car if it's hidden well and then changed back to the legal trans after the race with a hidden switch."
Are you suggesting Smokey Yunick has risen from the dead and is now working in dirt SLM racing?
It's like how NASCAR and Indycar use "Alternate" start/finish lines in qualifying, that ends the lap early so they can go down pit road immediately. In qualifying it's about how long it takes you to make a full lap of the track. You can score that anywhere.
The biggest problem here is that this is dirt. All forms of asphalt racing can have a line across the track. It's pretty simple. Breaking that plane first is a win. For a dirt track photo finish to be accurate, you have to have 2 points. (It takes 2 to make a line). These have to be identified if you hope to have any visual way to determine a winner. You can't use the flagman or flagstand. For 1, is it the actual guy waving the flag, is it a certain point of the flagstand, front edge, a post under it, etc. The simplest solution would be one that has been mentioned. You have a wire/cable running across the track at top of the catch fence or so. You have a stationary camera directed right along that line. If you don't have a physical wire, you have a camera mounted at point A, and line drawn on the wall, pole in the ground, etc to mark point B. The first car to break that plane wins. Anything else, like transponders is open to slight difference. I think someone mentioned one car being more sideways than another, etc. The outrageous example would be a car spinning across the start finish line. He'd have to be nearly a car length ahead of second to be declared the winner based solely on transponders (and I realize this is outlandish).
Sort of like someone introduced transponders to dirt track racing, without the instruction book, and the management did not know how to use them!
As long as they have been in use, I'm surprised the chassis manufacturers haven't come up with a universal mounting spot on a lateral piece of tubing.
Huh, remember when it was the first car under the flagman's checkered flag ? No poll 5 ft before or after the flag. I guess if someone in the booth wanted a particular driver/car to win they could. Technology, blah.
But where? Edge of stand? at the flagman himself? When cars are that close, you HAVE to have some definitive plane that has be broken. In asphalt racing it's the line painted on the track. Since dirt tracks can't do this, there has to be an objective point that is the finish line.
The lady in the foothills of NC makes the official call about a week later……what’s all this talk of an official finish the night of the race??
Wherever the line is buried under the dirt, the finish line is about 8 feet past that point. The line is usually ran inside a PVC pipe and buried about a foot or even less under the dirt.
So one can't really see or know where that is unless they ask the propmoter or track official, or a series official when they are at the track with one of their events.
Or at least that was how it was a few years ago. There may be changes since then.
Its called technology. like it or not, its about the only way to really decide a close race. regardless of where it lies on the track. Drivers know this. Drivers have accepted it and moved on, 4m hasnt. If you didnt have it you would still have the exact same arguement.
i see russ is back under his other name lol.