On Track

By Sommer Wood, Staff Writer/Editor

Many sporting events offer real time tracking of scores over the internet. Fans who cannot watch the event live or on television can still track their team with a simple click of their mouse. Did you know this can also be done for CMP shooting events? This has been made possible by CMP’s innovative system called Competitor Tracker, which provides live feeds on the internet as scores are entered into the system.

This program was first put to use at the 2003 National Matches at Camp Perry and since then its popularity has continued to grow. In 2004 the National Match results page averaged 5,000 hits per day, in 2005 it jumped to 8,000 hits a day. With just under 1300 competitors, that means there were eight hits a day on the website per shooter.

Spectators watch the results in Competition Tracker during the Sporter final at the JROTC National Air Rifle Championship.

At the JROTC National Air Rifle Championships at Fort Benning, Georgia 23-25 March 2006 those numbers jumped significantly. On the second day of competition, the results page had over 5,000 hits. For a competition that only had 124 competitors that means there were over 30 hits per shooter. Normally results are keyed into Competitor Tracker as soon as targets are scored or scorecards are received. At Fort Benning, the Pool Range electronic target system was set up to provide a direct results feed into Competitor Tracker so that scores fired in the match were updated with each shot. This resulted in a true real-time live feed of scores that appeared on the Internet. It was the first time this has been accomplished for any shooting sports competition.

The CMP’s Competitor Tracker allows family, friends and shooting sports fans to follow competitions with a click of their mouse. To view results from any competition conducted by the CMP, just go to http://clubs.odcmp.com/results and select the match you wish to follow. Be sure to do it on the day of the match, during the match!