The Federation of Motorsport clubs of Uganda (FMU) earlier this month upgraded to a new timing system; the rally time clocks.
The new timing system is all set to start operations this weekend in the third round of the National Rally Championship in Masaka.
A team of Ugandan marshals have been undergoing training with South Africa’s Steve Ardy and Williams Loew. The training started on Wednesday and will extend to Masaka during the rally.
“The new timing system is far much better from the one we have been using. The new ones can capture the jump start unlike the ECM timing system.
“After filling in the times on the finish, the system will be able to automatically display the times registered for everyone to see. This will reducing on complaints about times,” explained Hussein Kati, President of Uganda Marshals association.
The new system is simple. It will also reduce on human resource needed at controls.
“There will no longer be more hand counting and FF flags in the stages where these clocks will be placed. So we expect other marshals to concentrate on watching over the system instead,” he added.
However, there are likely challenges expected to come along with the new system.
“We shall have a big problem considering the nature of our fans. We have to try so much to avoid fans from closing the beams after setting up otherwise this could mess up our times.”
“Besides, we shall be working in a critical condition and very cautious when using the system because it’s very expensive. Any piece destroyed could damage the system,” said Kato.
Meanwhile, FMU only acquired two complete sets which will handle two stages starting with the Masaka rally super special stage at Kako grounds on Saturday.