Courses, CourseLegs and TimingLines

In the simplest of forms a course consist out of a single stretch between a start and finish line. The start line could be a virtual construct, where the StartGroup time is manually determined. The finish line records the final outcome of each participant’s race.

In a lap race a participant is crossing the same line multiple times, where each lap is "rolled out" to create a virtual, linear progressing of the course.

A lap race could also have a lead-in section before the laps are started.

The lap count can be unbounded, creating the possibility to have a time based race, i.e. where riders ride laps for 1 hours and then finish.

Similarly, it is possible to have a lead-out section.

In more complicated scenarios more than one course leg can cross the same timing line. In these scenarios the progression along the virtual, linear progression of the race must be tracked. It is therefore also required to track each crossing.

In these types of races a compromise has to be made between catering for missed tag reads (rider did cross, but tag did not register) and participants taking "short cuts". The latter can be mitigated by proper course design that allows sufficient intermediate checkpoints for the system to confirm correct progress along the course before crossing the same timing line again.

In the most complex cases multiple courses could be using the same timing lines simultaniously. The most simplist form of this is Individual Pursuit on a track, where two participants start at differnt staring points, but cross the same lines.