Testimonials - GrandPrix Race Manager

Randy,

I wanted to thank you again for the support you provided to us on Friday night. We ran three races Saturday for our Christian Service Brigade group and every thing went very well. Many people commented on how smoothly the race went and there were NO problems at all. What a great piece of software and worth every penny!!!

Already looking forward to next year and your software will definitely play a very big role.

God Bless,

Michael Harnage
Fairfax Covenant Church Christian Service Brigade
Fairfax, VA

Randy,

We ran our Grand Prix last night and it was perfect!!!! Since last night I have had several people tell me how professional it ran last night and how impressed they were with the software. I just wanted to let you know, what was said. There were so many that loved last night's event, they are already asking me when can we schedule another Awana Grand Prix. WOW

Anyway, i did have a question. Let's say that a clubber was registered, passed inspection and then something came up and couldn't race. How would you delete this racer? Bear in mind the chart had already been generated and imported. What we did last night was just skip that clubber every time it was his time to race. Not that it matters much, but it there the lane statistics off a little.

Again, thanks for the wonder job you have done. and if ever you need anything, please let me know.

Steve Cox
Eastside Baptist Awana Clubs
Cairo, GA

Randy:

You will be glad to know that our Pinewood Derby that we held today was a complete success. This was the first time that we actually used a computer with our Microwizard timer and I see now all we have been missing. Next year we will have to get our hands on a projector for the computer so everyone can view the results. Thanks for all your help!

Mel Hander
Pack 605
Denison, TX

Randy,

We used Grand Prix Race Manager along with the Micro Wizard finish line for the first time this weekend. Wow! It certainly made things go quickly and smoothly. I thought I was going to have to spend a great deal of time figuring it out, but I didn't. I spent a total of about two hours, and that includes pre-registering all of the scouts. Great job, and great product. If it is ok with you, I am going to put a link from our website to yours. Take a look at our site and let me know if you are ok with that.

Best regards,

Luke Redus
Pack 355
Spring, Texas

Mr. Lisano,

Your Grand-Prix race manager software is great. I just purchased a copy of version 2.0 for my son's cubscout pack. Pack 313 in Onancock Va. used your software for the first time last week and it really made a difference. 20 cars competed and it was a close race. There was only a .4 second gap between 1st and 5th place. I'm so glad that we didn't have to judge this race by eye. On behalf of pack 313, I want to thank you for creating such a wonderful product. I will also be mailing you a check for $10 for the use of version 1 in our race.

Thank you and God bless,

Robert Gibb
Father of a WEBELO
Pack 313
Onancock, VA

Hi Randy

Just a note to tell you our race went great friday night! The software ran perfect, we were running .ver .12 and had no issues at all. Our master of ceremonies, who has been calling our races for years thought I was nuts for using a projector to allow the parents and kids see what was going on. They have had so many problems over the last few years with the old DOS program, keeping it all a "secret" was one way of keeping things moving. They certainly changed their minds by the time it was all over and many parents commented how nice it was to follow what was going on.

It wasn't without a few logistical (people) problems like running heats in the wrong order but with the pit crew being able to see the display, we were able to actually see the problem and fix it faster than the old way. This problem was corrected before most people even knew what was wrong.

My only request (I think I made it before but it was not a priority) is can you add the ability to fully edit the final results? 2 reasons...

1. We don't allow overall winners to also take a trophy for their den, no "double dipping". We would like to edit the overall winners out of the den winners list before we display the names.

2. This was a strange one and did not forsee........a den leader allowed a sibling to enter a car under the name of a cub scout who was not participating! It was only brought to our attention during the race since that car was doing quite well! The leader thought there would be no harm but did not realize what a problem it created. We could not remove the name from the list once the race was underway. The finished 2ed overall!

These 2 issues kept us from using the projector when announcing the results.

Thanks again for making such a great product and look forward to hearing from you.

Keep the astronauts and their families in your thoughts, this was really sad.

John Fitzgerald
Pack 25
Princeton, MA

Hey Randy,

I just wanted to drop you a note saying you can add our Pack to your list of satisfied customers! While I didn't get to participate in the Derby, my job has me in Spain right now, I've gotten a lot of feedback from people who were there and it's all been very positive.

Eric ran the derby and everything went very smoothly, so smooth they had to slow down the pace, we have around 40 kids in the back and normally a race in the past took 2 to 3 hours to manually track the racers. This race would have been completed in under an hour if they hadn't slowed it down. Eric also had a second computer setup so they could use the RaceFX software, this added a lot to the atmosphere and the kids really enjoyed it, especially when the race was over and they let them play with the rest of the effects.

We had some of the Boy Scouts at the race and they asked if they could use the system for their race. I guess Eric could be busy running races as the word gets around.

If you'd like to use our Pack as a positive referral we would be happy to endorse your program.

Thanks for all your help in resolving the problems we were having with the Bye lane, Eric said he really appreciated the auto save feature your last patch installed.

Dave Bentley
Pack 576
O'Fallon, MO

Randy,

We ran our race today and everything went without a hitch. We ran about 90 cars in about an hour, maybe a little less. Just want to thank you for a program that is so user friendly.

Thank You and God Bless

Calvin Brown
Cub Scout Pack 23
Trenton, MO

Just had to send this to you.

Our pack (Pack 672, Hilliard Ohio) just finished our Pinewood Derby today. We used your software and let me tell you what a great success it was.

We had all kinds of "extreme testing" done "under fire". We had heats that had to be rerun some even after the times had been saved (due to late judges decision about one car interfering with another). We had heats run where the starters let the cars go just before the "Get times" button was pressed.

All of those situations were handled beautifully, just as you would expect them to be handled.

We actually ran two derbies at the same time. We have a pack that partners with us (Pack 483 of Hilliard, Ohio). We would run two of our heats and then one of theirs since our pack is twice as big as theirs. We also wanted to keep their racers from racing against ours since our kids are "more experienced". This was only the second Pinewood Derby for that pack.

Both packs were able to award their 1st, 2nd and 3rd place finishers independently. The parents of both packs were very impressed. By the way, our decision to keep the racers separate was a good one, since looking at the results shows that the 1st place racer from the other pack would have only finished 11th in our pack.

This last event is one that I just could not believe any program could or would recover from:

One of the parents accidentally pulled our power cable out of the wall. Our back-up power supply kept the computer running and sounded its alarm but with all the races going on, nobody heard the little sound. Well, you guessed it, with only 3 heats to go (and after nearly 130 heats), the computer went DEAD. No warning (that we could hear). Just lights out!!!

Looking more than a little stunned (and worried), my partner and I plugged it back in and switched it on. To our (and nearly 200 other people's) amazement, every result from the previous heats were still there. (And to think, I thought clicking that "Save Times" button was annoying).

Everyone in the hall was very impressed (not to mention relieved). Your software certainly proved itself today.

Our first six place winners were separated by only 0.07 of a second and your lane statistics proved that our brand new 4 lane track was extremely well balanced. There was only 0.03 seconds difference in average times.

The parents were very enthusiastic about being able to come up and ask questions and see the "hard" numbers about their child's races. I was able to show that the scouts ran evenly on each of the lanes and faced roughly 24 other racers (with no repeats)

As you can tell, we will be spreading the news about your wonderful software and with your permission, I'd like to add a link to your website from our pack's website.

Thank you (you can't begin to imagine how deeply I mean that)

John Pirt
Bear Den Leader (and Race software specialist)
Pack 672
Hilliard, OH