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The Racing Environment

LaneMaster is completely customizable. Before you use LaneMaster, you must select the appropriate number of lanes and colors for the lanes on your track.

To access the menu, you can either use a mouse to click on the desired item, or you can press the "Alt." key and the highlighted letter of your desired menu choice. (Throughout this manual, the terms "click on" and "select" are used as the default. While these are generally mouse-specific terms, they can also be thought of as 'use the tab or arrow keys to move the cursor there, then press "Enter"'. NOTE: To use a mouse, you must have the DOS mouse driver loaded... check the documentation of your mouse or computer if your mouse does not work with LaneMaster!)

Select the mode or feature of your choice, then follow the on-screen instructions. If you select a menu item with "..." after it, LaneMaster will open a special window used to control the feature you have selected. Make your desired choices and then select "OK " to return to the main screen in Data view. Most windows have a "Help" button, which will show you specific details about the choices available. If you chose the wrong item or don't wish to make any changes, select "Cancel" or press the "Escape" key.

Initial Setup

Select Edit (on the main menu), then select Lanes. Set the correct number of lanes for your track by pressing the number or clicking the menu choice. Next select Edit, Lane Colors, and set the colors for your lanes. To set the colors, you may either click on the Lane number button and then click on the desired color, or you may press the number on the keyboard corresponding to the lane, then tab or arrow through the colors until you reach the desired one. When you are finished, select "OK".

These settings should now be saved as your default setup. After selecting File, Save from the main menu, save your new default setup by clicking on the "Save as Default" button or by typing in "DEFAULT" in the file name window and pressing "Enter". If you will be using LaneMaster with more than one track, you can save and load other custom setups with just a few keystrokes. To save custom setups, type a name for the new or modified setup file (eight letters maximum, no spaces, no punctuation marks!) in the file name window and press "Enter". Do not add an extension - ".TRK" will automatically be added to the file name. If you type in a name that has already been used, LaneMaster asks if you want to replace the existing file. To load any setup that you have created, select File, Load Settings.... and click on the desired settings file.

Settings for Timing, Lane Rotationscheme, Heats, Sound(on/off), Lane Numbers (Show/Hide) are more likely to be changed during normal operation than Lanes or Lane Colors. While any of these settings can be changed anytime (except when a race or event is in progress!), you are strongly advised to save your default setup file immediately to avoid having to set them again later. Settings for Sound and "Show/Hide Lane Numbers" are also automatically saved every time you change them. Note that the setting for Heats (i.e. 4 or 8 heats on an 8 lane track) is NOT saved in the default file; it can only be set for the current LaneMaster session. (see "Heatsand "4/8" mode", next page)

Timing / Laps

The timing defaults for LaneMaster are 3 minute heats with 90 second lane rotation periods; 1 minute to qualify and 10 second countdowns. LaneMaster allows you to set "Coast Time" (how long the lap detector will remain 'live' after the end of each heat [0 - 2 seconds]) and "Countdowns after Track Calls" (if you don't want any Countdown at all after Track Calls, set it to "0" ). If you wish to change these settings, select Edit, Timing. Use the tab key or mouse to select the value you wish to change and type in a new value. Heats are limited to 240 minutes (four hours!!), Rotation and Qualifying are limited to 5 minutes, and Countdowns are limited to 15 seconds. (While we are on the subject of limits, LaneMaster limits heats to 99,999 per racer, which should be enough!)

Auto Reset

In practice mode, it is very convenient for the racers to be able to reset their lanes, so that they can compare different cars or different setups on the same car. During practice mode, if no laps are completed for the amount of time you set on Auto Reset, the lane will automatically reset itself. If you never want the lanes to reset automatically, set this time to 0.

Minimum Lap Times

Minimum Lap Time is a very important item, which should be set slightly lower than the fastest possible lap on your track for that class. If used correctly, it can eliminate 'rider' laps. The setting can range from 0.000 to 9.999 seconds. Be careful with this setting... laps faster than your minimum will NOT register! If your minimum is set to 2.3 seconds, a lap of 2.299 or faster will not be counted. Because of that, it is very unlikely that cars will ever register unearned laps when another racer jumps into their lane!

"Lap Goal Mode"

To run a race to a target number of laps (i.e. "The Pacific Northwest 400"), you should divide the total number of laps in the race by the number of lanes on your track. In other words, to run a 1000 lap race on an 8-lane track, select 125 lap heats. Please note that the final target total (i.e. 1000, 500, etc.) must be an even multiple of the number of lanes on your track. In other words, you can't run a 500 lap race on a 6 lane track (since 500 / 6 = 83.333), but you could run a 600, a 450 or even a 504 lap race! During "Lap Goal Mode" LaneMaster will tell you the amount of time that has elapsed in each heat, rather than the time remaining, because there is no time limit in "Lap Goal Mode".

If you wish to make your new settings the default setup, select "Save as Default" before pressing "OK".

Rotation

Clicking on Edit, Rotation presents two choices: European and Straight. The current selected choice will have a check (dot) next to it. For more details on these choices, see the 'Rotation:' paragraph under "Race Mode" (page 11).

Heats and "4/8" mode

When your track is set up for 8 lanes, the option "Heats" will appear on the Edit menu. This allows you to run 4 or 8 heat races on your track, by clicking on Heats, then "4 Heats" or "8 Heats", respectively. This option does not appear on the menu if you are set up for 4 or 6 lanes! Four heats on eight lanes is known throughout this manual as "4/8" mode. (See "Rotation", p.11, for more inf.)

Sound (on/off)

The Sound control is a toggle (or "on/off") switch. To access it, click on Edit. If it presently says "Turn Sound On", that means that Sound is now off, and clicking on it will turn Sound on. If it says, "Turn Sound Off", that means that Sound is now on, and clicking on it will turn Sound off. The new setting is automatically saved in the default setup, and will be set this way whenever you run LaneMaster.

Lane Numbers (Show/Hide)

This toggle switch controls how Practice, Qualifying and Race results are displayed in Output View, and in the on-screen Rotation Guide. If you select "Show Lane Numbers", the caption will change to "Hide Lane Numbers" and lanes will be displayed as colored numbers (rather than blocks) in Output View. The new setting is automatically saved in the default setup, and will be set this way whenever you run LaneMaster. This setting also controls printing of lane numbers or colors on reports.

Simulate Results

To use this feature, click on Mode, Simulate Results. If it is checked, Practice mode, Qualifying, or running a race will show lap and time results based on randomly generated lap times. This is useful to demonstrate LaneMaster if you have not yet installed the board, if you do not presently have the board hooked up to a track, or if you don't have assistants willing to run laps while you learn about the program! (Note: The Demo version of LaneMaster does not have this option, since it always runs in Simulate mode!)

Next: Practice Mode