Regarding using transponders for scoring:
Again, fourteen years of experience yields hundreds of stories. In IRL (I can't speak for CART), the transponders are used for scoring as well as timing, with the location of the transponder defined in the technical specifications for uniform mounting. This rule was implemented after the Unser/Goodyear finish. The original calculation for the margin of victory was changed when it was discovered that Al's transmitter was located in the nose pod, forward of him feet, and Goodyear's was mounted in the side pod, about three feet back. Al was running a Galles chassis that year, and the nose was the only place we could put the transmitter where we could get a reliable signal.
Then there is the story about an event that took place on a weekday practice day. The track had gone yellow for debris and all the cars were in the pits. All of a sudden, the system recorded a car that had just turned a lap of something like 300 MPH! Not a car on the track at the time! Then another lap, and another. We were all standing in the scoring booth with our eyes bugged out and our jaws on the floor. Then we noticed a driver sitting on the pit wall, looking at his watch. At the appropriate moment, he leaned over the wall, and swung his arm, with a transmitter in his hand, over the timing loop! Good thing we were not feeding data at the time to a live broadcast company.
Hope everyone has a safe weekend.
