by Jeff Toquinto
Editor of The Bridgeport News

A new all-weather surface isn’t the only thing brand
new this year for use by the Bridgeport High School
and Middle School track and field teams. Thanks to the
generosity of one local resident, the school is the
first in Harrison County and the Big 10 Conference to
have an electronic timing system.
The system, which is a FinishLynx Color Automated
Timing System used in conjunction with Hy-Tek Meet
Magnager Software, will be in place with the school
opens the 2002 track season next week. The system,
which cost $12,000, includes a color photofinish
camera and hardware, wirging and software. The only
thing not includes was a thee computer network needed
to run the system and scoring software.
The track teams initially planned on using the old
hand-held stop watch method of timing before a
donation was made to the program for the equipment.
And, the donation was anonymous.
“We were totally surprised and grateful that a donor
came through with the money for the timing system,”
said boys track coach Jon Griffith. “ The donation
will help us be one of the premier hosts in the area.”
It may also help the school be a premier host in the
state. Griffith said, to his knowledge, the only other
schools with the system include Parkersburg,
Parkersburg South, Wheeling Park and school using
Laidley Field. Lewis County, he said, is in the
process of acquiring a similar system.
Bridgeport’s system will provide times down to a
thousandth of a second. Griffith said it also
eliminates any human error, while making it much
easier and more efficient to run a meet.
The software, according to Griffith, works easily. The
race informatin is sent from the scoring software
computer to the camera’s copmuter and from there the
timing software is activated by the starting gun.
The camera takes very thin images of the finish line
and time codes each image, said Griffith. Upon
completion of an event, the images are reassembled and
produce a complete time coded finish line picture.
That image is evaluated and the competitors are
assigned times to the thousandth of a second. From
there, the times are transferred to the scoring
software and the results are printed. Individual and
team scores are tracked by the new system.
Griffith said that the new system will be used for all
middle school and varsity meets this year.