New features

bbk Club, bbkRC Pro, bbkRC Pro Plus, bbkRC DRIVERS and bbkRC DRIVERS Plus

• Ability, Formula, Roof Colour, Team and Driver Type moved from Driver to Car
• Ranking facility to sort drivers into heats
• New Car attribute "Engine/Motor"
• Facility to rename "Roof Colour", "Team", "Formula", "Engine/Ranking", "Club #", "Nat #' Titles
• New Qualifying, Grid and Race Formats
• Improved control when automatically allocating Competitors to Practice and Heats

bbkRC Pro, bbkRC Pro Plus, bbkRC DRIVERS and bbkRC DRIVERS Plus

• Pause/Resume Race
• Start/Pause/Stop Lights
• Make Extra Race Classes

bbkRC Pro Plus, bbkRC DRIVERS and bbkRC DRIVERS Plus

• Instant Announcements
• Make Extra Tracks
• Instant Voice Messages
• Batch E-Mail for Membership Management
• Batch E-Mail for Meeting Management and Results

bbkRC DRIVERS Plus

• DRIVERnet for the Pocket PC

Updating your copy of bbkRC
Download and run the bbkRC 2005-1 Install/Update file. It will both Update existing installations and perform a complete Installation.

Launch Microsoft Explorer and browse to "C:\Program Files\bbksoftware\bbkrc\data". Note that on some installations the directory "Program Files" may be replaced by "Programmer" or some other name. Rename the Sub Directory "Training - Evaluation" to some other name. When you launch bbkRC you will see this other name in the database list in place of Training Evaluation. You can now Update bbkRC without danger of overwriting you directory.

Running bbkRC after updating

When the update first runs on a Database created by earlier versions of bbkRC, there are some database updates that need to be run. You will see a screen similar to this.

Select Yes and your database will be updated and the information formerly held in the Driver Record will be copied to Car Record. The first time you open a new database created by earlier version of the bbkRC you will see this screen.

Check the options Tab on the initial screen and select any new options that are available that you require. This complete the installation of the 2005-1 update of bbkRC.

Changes to the Car Details
Many of the Beta Testers told us that just having one ability for a driver was restrictive. They pointed out that in BRCA Electric Off Road Drivers can have different Formula grading for 2wd and 4wd. As we have a facility for a Driver to have more than one car, we decided to move the Ability, Formula, Roof Colour and Driver Type from a single entry per driver to an entry for each car. We have also added two more attributes, Engine/Motor and Ranking. You can edit these in the Car Section of Driver/Car and Competitor. Engine/Motor is the third dropdown on the top right (set to Nova Rossi) and the other attributes are in a separate Tab where the Crystal Information is displayed.

When bbkRC 2005-1 starts up it can update the Car details with the Details formerly stored in the Driver record.

Improved control when automatically allocating Competitors to Practice and Heats

Ranking is a way of ordering drivers for loading into heats. Ranking is not the same as Ability. Ability is a relative performance based on race times whereas Ranking is just a number. Typically you would load ranking from Series results. Facilities are provided to set ranking from End of Round or Series.

When you make Practice and Heats you can specify that drivers are to be loaded by Ranking. Ranking is such that the Driver with Ranking 1 is the top. The driver with Ranking 1 will be in the last Heat and car number 1. When making Practice and Heats you can specify that Ability or Ranking is strict or relaxed. Strict ensures that competitors are loaded into races purely on Ability or Ranking. Relaxed allows competitors to be allocated into races with regard for available crystals. When you make heats with Race Assignment set to Strict you may need to manipulate crystal allocation to ensure all competitors have a crystal.

When making Mixed Races you can specify the minimum number of "rest" races. This ensures that a driver is not allocated to consecutive or close races. If you are planning to run a mixed or Reedy style race, it is advisable to have a "support" class with rounds between the rounds of Reedy races.

Renaming  "Roof Colour", "Team", "Formula", "Engine/Ranking", "Club #", "Nat #' Titles. You can now change the names of some attribute headings. For example you can change "Club #" to "Driver ID". The headings that can be changed are: "Roof Colour", "Team", "Formula", "Engine/Ranking", "Club #", "Nat #' . They can be changed in Setup System|Setup Options|Driver/Car Attributes. These new headings are used throughout bbkRC on screen, printouts and on the DRIVERnet Screens.

New Qualifying, Grid and Race Formats
You will find more Qualifying and Race Rules options in the Race Classes. Qualifying Formats are:

You will find the following Grid Rules (with the option to define the Round 1 Grid)

You will find the following Race Rules (for 3 leg finals)

Pause/Resume Race
Pausing and Resuming races is a very specialised facility required by RC Boat and Large Scale Stockcar racing. In these types of racing it is not possible or safe to "marshal" and so the race has to be stopped and then resumed. It is only practical in Line or Rolling Start racing. To pause a race you can either press the Yellow Flag Button , or if you have enabled you can press CTRL-P. If you press the Yellow Flag you will get a confirmation dialog. If you have enabled CTRL-P and press it, the race will immediately pause. the race will have a yellow symbol next to it in the Race Schedule Window, . When the problem has been rectified, assemble the vehicles at the start point and resume the race by pressing F7 or the Green Flag. If you want to select another race, you can do so. If you decide that you want to restart the paused race, rather than resuming, Load another race, Right mouse Click the Paused Race and Select Re-run. If you decide that the paused race results will stand without further racing, you can do this by selecting the Race in Explore Races. You will have a button available marked . Press this button and select the required action. If you do not want to Confirm or Re-Run (leave it paused) press the cancel (X) in the top left corner and then select No to the invitation to clear the results.

The Pause/Resume feature can be used in conjunction with Remote Controlled keyboards to allow marshals or trackside officials to Pause and Resume Races.

Start/Pause/Stop Lights
Lights can be connected to the PC running bbkRC to provide a visual signal to start, pause or stop racing. Red, Amber and Green lights can be signalled. The lighting signals are encoded on a serial port using RTS (Request to Send) and DTR (Data Terminal Ready) control lines. These are as follows:

Pin Connections

Signals

Lights are selected with the HeatBoard in the Splash Screen Options

The Lights can be tested using System Setup|Setup Options|Heatboard. Select the Sequence to be tested using the Radio Buttons and press Test Lights.

With Lights selected there is a box on the Status bar of the Main Screen that shows the lights state. the display below shows the AMB Autocount state, Heatboard (Not Running) and Lights State (Red).

The Lights sequences are:

• Race Starting: Red 5 seconds, Amber 5 seconds, Lights Off
• Race Started: Green 5 Seconds, Lights Off.
• Race Paused: Amber 60 seconds, Lights Off.
• Race Over/Abandoned: Amber 10 Seconds, Red 60 Seconds, Lights Off.

In Auto mode the Red light comes on 30 seconds before a race is due to start.

Make Extra RaceClasses
The New Button on the Setup RaceClass and Tracks screen is now available. When pressed you will see a Popup Menu  with Make New RaceClass and Make New Track (bbkRC Pro Plus and above only). If you select Make New Track you will see a dialog box to enter the new RaceClass name and select either default settings of settings from one of your existing Race Classes. If you select Make New Track you will see a similar dialog box to enter the new Track name. Again you can choose default settings or copy the settings from an existing Track. Note that when you make a new track, it is available for all RaceClasses and likewise when you make a new RaceClass is is available for all Tracks. You can select the Track for the meeting in the View/Change current meeting screen via the Select Meeting Main Menu button.

Instant Announcements
When running a race meeting there are some standard announcements that have to be made. For example at the end of Heats it is often necessary to call drivers who need to make a crystal change. There are announcements that need to be made then repeated at regular intervals. Instant Announcements will make these announcements for you. When running with DRIVERnet these announcements are relayed by the network to the remote PCs. This is useful when running indoors with pits in a separate room. You can connect a PA system to a Networked PC rather than run speaker wire to the pits. Drivers with their own PCs can also hear these announcements.

A log of announcements is maintained so previous announcements can be recalled. In addition you can build up a collection of standard announcements. You can scan races for a list of names of drivers that match a particular criteria, such as all drivers in Finals in RaceClass Mardave with a Crystal Change. You can select a voice for the announcement and also set the announcement to be repeated a number of times at intervals. You can also clear queued announcements, should they no longer be required.

Instant Voice Messages
You can activate announcements for application of penalties such that when a result is penalised or disqualified an announcement is made identifying the driver and the nature of the change. You can also automatically call drivers in the current race or the displayed race to marshal points, technical inspection or race control from the Race Screen. When the Announce Penalties on the Pop up Menu has a tick, all actions with a will be announced if that penalty is applied. The Announce Penalties tick is applied and removed by selecting Announce Penalties on the Pop up menu. 

Batch E-Mail for Membership and Meeting Management and Results
If Driver's email addresses are stored in the Driver Database, you can mass email them with Messages. You can mass email meeting competitors with their entry status and meeting results.

There are two mechanism that you can use to email, either via your Email program (e.g. Microsoft Outlook) or direct to you Internet Service Provider using SMTP.

Why use your Email program (MAPI)?
Emails will be sent to your Email program and then be forwarded to the "outside world" when your PC is next connected. This is useful if you want to send the emails while you are offline. You cannot use this option via a WebMail account. There are two downsides to using your Email program. the first is that the Emails will appear to have come from you personally and if they are replied to, the replies will come to you. You may prefer the Emails to go to a Club Email Address. The second is that recent versions of Outlook have a mechanism that requires you to Click Yes to a dialog box as each Email is sent. This gets very tedious very quickly! there is a way round this, see ClickYes later in the document.

Why use SMTP?
You can send the emails direct to your ISP (internet Service Provider) directly. You need to be online when you send the emails of course. You can set a reply address so that replies to these emails go to another email address. This can be quite useful if you are managing the entry of a meeting on someone else's behalf. You can send the emails out but the replies go to someone else. This is the mechanism that is used to generate SPAM and some ISPs are putting in place checks to restrict this. You may find that your ISP will block emails that have an "off-ISP" reply address. You can easily experiment with this.

Setting up and using the Email Service
You can Email from the Drivers or Competitors screens. The example we are using is from the Competitors screen. Select the group you wish to Email to and Right Mouse Click. You will see a popup menu with an Email option and moving the mouse over this will bring up a sub menu. Send Race Schedule is not yet available. Click on the required option (any will do to set up the service) and you will see the Send Email screen similar to the one below. On the left is a list of the selected Drivers or Competitors that have Email addresses in the Database. There is a Tick box next to each name. You can un-tick anyone who you don't want to send an email to. The heading above this list will indicate how many are in the list and how many of the original selection do not have Email addresses. No checking is made at this point regarding the validity of the email address. In the example below you can see some of the features of the email. The default mail subject is at the bottom, you can change this. This is an email for confirmation, so you can include the details from the entry that you want to be part of the email, so that the competitor can confirm and correct their entry. There is provision for you to enter some additional information to go on the email. There are buttons to Send the Email(s) and a Checkbox to preview the email. The email that would be sent from this example is on the right, you can click on it to read the message.

The Email Message option has provision for you to add an attachment, this might be a file containing a map or rules etc. Once you have set up the Email you can experiment. Start by sending messages to yourself rather than your Club Members!

Setting up Batch Email for use with your Email Program (MAPI)
Press the Setup Button and select Via MAPI. In the MAPI Configuration box tick the first option if you want to avoid clicking Yes each time you send an email. You also have to download the ClickYes program. The good news is that it is Free. A link to the site is on the Downloads page of this web site.

Setting up Batch Email for use with SMTP
Press the Setup button and select Via SMTP. You can specify Sender Name and a reply address. Please note that some ISPs may ignore mail with off-ISP or even off-domain Reply Addresses. You also need to enter the address of your ISPs SMTP Gateway. This will either be an address (as shown) or a symbolic address such as smtp.ntlworld.com. You can find out your ISPs SMTP Gateway from your existing Email programs, by looking in the connection setup. ISP Security will prevent you from using the gateway for another ISP. If you try to do this you may get your domain on a denied list as a suspect SPAMer. If you are now confused you should maybe use MAP instead. The Logon to SMTP Server is not required and should not be used.

DRIVERnet for the Pocket PC

This feature will be described in a separate document.

Future updates of bbkRC
The next update, 2005-2, will be available at the end of March. 

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