No Chip! No Time!

Well, I have heard that "No Chip! No Time!"  Well, this statement is often true but I guess not always true.  I have in the past made a "pest" of myself to many of the time services in Maine & New England.  I am one of the photojournalist at the finish line taking photos. While I look over the photos & conpare them to the resullts, I see many of the mistakes which are made. Often the errors are made by volunteers and/or the runners not following the rules which have been clearly made before each races.  One of these errors would be that runners forget to attach their chip to their foot.  The chip system might be faster but it does not record all.  The following story was published in the www.MDIslander.com which I believe to the the exception and not the rule which most time services see as their job.  This type of correction is going the extra mile.

Runner restored by photo finish

Written by Earl Brechlin

Friday, November 02, 2007

SOUTHWEST HARBOR — It was a photo finish of sorts. For one competitor in the sixth running of the Mount Desert Island Marathon recently, news photos taken at the finish line have helped him get his name, and his 57th-place finish, into the record books. According to race officials, David Feltwell of Virginia apparently forgot to put a computer chip on his shoe that would have automatically recorded his time as he crossed the finish line. “I did not realize my mistake until I crossed the finish line,” Mr. Feltwell said in an e-mail to race officials. The fact that Mr. Feltwell, who was running his second MDI Marathon, was not in the results was discovered when the Islander planned to use a photo of the runner celebrating at the finish in the paper, but reporters could not find his bib number in the officialresults. The photo that appeared on the front page of last week’s Islander, as well as other photos taken just before and after, helped race officials determine when Mr. Feltwell finished. The paper supplied the images to official race timer Bill Teschek of Granite Race Services who made the final determination. “David, I’ve given you a time of 3:27:29, as the clock shows you past the finish line at 3:27:28 and we always round up,” Mr. Teschek said in an e-mail to Mr. Feltwell last week. Mr. Feltwell, who works in the Pentagon, is an uncle to Mount Desert Island triathlete and runner Nigel Storer. However, what is good news for Mr. Feltwell may come as a disappointment to the more than 600 participants who finished after him. Their places were all adjusted down by one when the official record was corrected.