At first I thought I had it all figured out by using a laserpointer to trigger my lap timer and  lap counter software.

BUT… turns out that my Rally car is “loosing paint” and the laser shines right through the body and triggers the software to count the car 2-3 times each time it comes by.

I also wanted to keep setup time to a very minimum and decided to built a mechanical contact that would simply trigger when the car drives over.

This setup worked like a charm UNTIL later on in the day when tiny little rocks and dust coated the contacts and prohibited proper conductivity of the two plates. That was the end of the mechanical lap counter and timer.

My latest idea is to use a webcam as input device – and so far it works like a charm. I initially messed around writing my own software, but similar as to my previous phototransistor- via-gameport timer I found that someone already had the idea before me and did a much better job compared to what my coding skills would have allowed me to do. Long story short I am currently running EasyLapCounter – check out the site and developer -. The software works like a charm and the software can even count multiple cars at once, granted they are different colors.

The image below shows the setup with my “laptop rain cover” consisting of a clear plastic storage bin.