Starting last October, we are seeing what would seem to be out of the ordinary Transponder issues in Norcal. In 9 years I never had an issue, never moved my transponder location, suddenly my transponder would work in the hot pit but not on the track...this was at Sonoma last year. Crazy thing was we had 3 other SM"s and a couple E30's...all which had never had an issue before, not work consistently at this event. All cars have older hard wire transponders or the same vintage Battery style. Thought this was a Sonoma Loop issue!
Fast Forward to 2019...the pattern is repeating but now we are seeing this at every track! Sonoma, Thunderhill and Laguna have all had transponder issues...NASA, SCCA, CSRG cars that I'm aware of.
Obviously I'm aware of this because one of my 2 cars that raced last weekend was affected. In particular, we pinged in the hot pit on the out lap in qual...missed the 1st lap, pinged on lap 2(so we have 4 minute plus lap)then nothing lap 3 but hit again on lap 4(another 4 min plus lap). Luckily it hit on lap 5 and we qualed P5...PHEW! During our 1st race it missed on 1 lap at some point...so although we finished P5, Race Hero should us at 40ish!
Last night I had a conversation with the owner of our local biggest arrive and drive shop...I think he can race 12-15 cars at once. In casual conversation, he asked if I had seen any transponder issues!!! He has had issues at every track with multiple transponders...all the hard wired variety! He has a hand full of the battery versions which he has had to use as back-ups. His latest was last weekend at Sonoma with CSRG(vintage group) and before that at Laguna with SCCA.
So, the point of this thread...is anyone else across the country seeing this? At 1st I was convinced it was just an issue with 1 track and their system...but now after multiple reports at different tracks maybe there is an issue with some of the older AMB transponders...just getting old??