ChronoTrack Systems and Impinj Bring RFID Technology to Seattle Rock and Roll Marathon

ChronoTrack Systems Inc. announced that the company’s race timing system, based on Impinj UHF Gen 2 radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, performed flawlessly at the inaugural running of the Seattle Rock & Roll Marathon on June 27.

The sold-out event saw over 25,000 participants and featured both a half and full marathon that utilized the RFID-based system to record runners’ times at more than 18 points along the course.

At each timing point, Impinj Speedway readers and Threshold reader antennas supported the monitoring of runners’ times. All runners wore ChronoTrack “D-tags,” powered by Impinj’s Monza tag chip and UPM Raflatac’s DogBone tag antenna.

The “D-tag” allows race organizers to print an integrated bib and tag for each participant, encoding the runner’s bib number into the tag’s RFID chip at the time of printing. The tag peels off the bib and attaches to a runner’s shoe. ChronoTrack’s tag solution is lighter and less expensive than previous timing methods, and – most important to race organizers and participants – disposable. Runners no longer need to stand in long lines to “chip-return” their timing devices as with previous solutions. The system scales to any size race, operates in all weather conditions, and provides reading accuracy that exceeds all other timing solutions on the market today.

“Through our partnership with ChronoTrack, we’ve been using Impinj technology to time more than 300,000 runners at the Rock & Roll series of marathons,” said Dennis Ikenberry, CEO of Race Central. “We switched to Impinj UHF RFID products to remain on the cutting edge of timing technology as we have done over the past 30 years when we first brought computer and barcode scanning technology to road runs.”

“The rapid adoption of Impinj UHF RFID technology in race timing applications is no surprise to us,” said Kerry Krause, vice president of marketing for Impinj. “Our products are a perfect fit because they enable measureable improvements in the accuracy of the entire race timing infrastructure, which the athletes like, while providing real cost-efficiencies for the race organizers.”

To date, ChronoTrack Systems has successfully timed more than two million race finishers, and the company expects as many as 1,200 North American events will utilize the race timing technology in 2009. When combined with the industry leading performance of Impinj RFID technology, ChronoTrack brings event organizers, race timers and athletes a timing system that meets real-world needs by providing simplicity, accuracy, reliability and convenience.