About Royal ResultsMany years ago at a Valley Youth Conference (VYC) track meet, Terry Hearst and Erik Pedersen sat in the stands and watched their children compete. Either had any direct experience with the sport, however both saw the value it offered their children. It was clear to both of them that there was a lot of good happening. There were however some missing components, and room for improvement. Instead of sitting by and complaining, both became very involved with their local team, Simi Valley Running Rebels, (SVRR) and the Valley Youth Conference. Erik coached for many years, while Terry also coached; he became president of the SVRR, and eventually the commissioner on the VYC. Both families became very active with the programs. Terry's wife Denise and Erik's wife Laura coached too!
During the next few years, the VYC progressed to a point where all meet results were posted just hours after the meet completed. It was also during this time that Terry & Erik discovered FinishLynx®. Many of the VYC clubs had begun using a "FAT" timing device which used video cameras to capture time. This was a great improvement from the watch or Chronomix methods but it created other issues such as lots of video tape, VCR's, edit stations, and the manual process of writing down the times. It was clear to Terry & Erik that FinishLynx® was the way to go, the question was could the club afford it? Since Terry was the president of SVRR, he suggested that the expense of the system could be paid for by redirecting the volunteers from the finish line to other revenue activities. The board agreed and SVRR was the first VYC club to purchase a FinishLynx® system. Terry & Erik's kids graduated from the youth track programs and entered Royal High School. While the youth program had come so far, track & field at the high school level had not; at least at the league level. |
 
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It was during these years that Terry & Erik learned about this great sport. They saw what worked, and what could work better. One of the areas which could work better was results. While every child did receive a time or mark, this process required large amounts of volunteer help and the results were available to very few. It was also during this time that the VYC began using Hy-Tek's Meet Manager. The VYC commissioner at that time, Earl Charles, had the vision that this would provide a great boost to the program by not only providing a consistent platform to compile and distribute results, it freed up the volunteers to do other activities. One of those activities was timing. Using the Chronomix 737 timing clock, you could provide a time (printed on a paper tape) for every athlete in a 9 lane race or a 3200m run. This was a significant improvement from the old stop watch.
What seemed to be common place was capturing and recording only the top 3-5 times or marks. Since Royal High School had always been so generous to SVRR by allowing them to practice and host their meets there, Terry & Erik along with the Running Rebels volunteers began timing their league and invitational meets. At the first Royal Twilight Classic, the SVRR timing crew provided times and marks for every competitor just minutes after each event. It was a huge success especially considering that this meet was not seeded. Athletes were entered into the event just before they competed and before they caught their breath they had a result. The results were sent to 
