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SPRINGFIELD — It took Mike Chatfield, the owner of Finish Timing, 18 years to discover his passion for track and field.

The Northeastern graduate loved basketball in high school and was set to pursue it at Wilmington College. But a chance meeting with Quakers cross country coach Jim Boland changed everything.

"Everything just kind of fell into place," Chatfield said. "If it wasn't for him, this never wouldn't have happened."

During fall practice at Wilmington, Chatfield ran a timed two-mile run for the basketball squad, and Boland took notice. Boland asked Chatfield if he had ever run cross country before.

"No, not unless I had a basketball in my hand," Chatfield said.

"Why don't you play my No. 1 runner in a game of basketball?" Boland asked. "If you win, I'll never talk to you again."

The game never took place, but Chatfield eventually landed with the cross country and track teams.

"I just really got hooked on to it," Chatfield said.

He became one the Quakers top runners and was American Mideast Conference most valuable player in 1992.

He later graduated and became the Jets track and cross country coach. During his tenure, the high school's athletic department bought a FinishLynx camera in 1998, and Chatfield was the only one who knew how to operate it.

Chatfield left coaching in 2002 but he needed a way to "keep his hands in track and field," so he started timing meets.

Chatfield timed about 12 meets in 2002, not expecting to do any more than that, but each year it's gotten bigger.

Finish Timing went from running about 40 meets in 2005 to about 156 meets this year. It receives nothing but glowing remarks.

"The first question we ask when we go to work is: 'Are you going to have Mike Chatfield?' " said local track official Jim Rolfes. "They are top notch. They're extremely well organized. They have all the best equipment.

"If he's going to be there, it's going to be a piece of cake."

The technology

Chatfield remembers what it's like to stand at the end of a track holding a stopwatch — and it isn't pretty.

"If you missed somebody, you were done," Chatfield said.

Now, with the help of state-of-the-art technology, Chatfield is able to time places accurate up to four decimal places.

He uses a FinishLynx camera, the same they use for NASCAR, which sets off a sensor as soon as a track official shoots the gun. As the runners cross the finish line, the camera takes a picture every 1,000th of a second and splices them together to make it look like a real picture.

All Chatfield has to do is draw a line onto each individual athletes chest, which then automatically calculates their time and sends it into a computer with Hy-Tek meet manager software.

The meet manager software will track each person's time and is available just a few minutes after each race.

"All it takes is 12 keystrokes to do a race," Chatfield said.

This season, Chatfield added a 3-foot tall scoreboard that shows each runner's time just a few seconds after a race.

"He'll do whatever it takes to give your kids the best he can," said Shawnee track coach Mike Garberich.

A simple process

Running track meets was never an easy process in the past.

"It was a nightmare for an athletic director," said South Athletic Director Greg Newland. "It was a tremendous amount of manpower needed to host a track meet and do it the right way."

For example, an athletic director needed countless officials and workers to run the stopwatches on every lane on the track and the field events, as well a person to keep track of meet scoring. They would also have to set up heat sheets before an event, as well as tally scores and times for the coaches, which could take several days to complete.

But Chatfield and his crew, which includes Dwayne Sebastian, Damon Christen and former Graham track coach and Athletic Director Mike Ludlow, have made things as simple as possible.

Through the online entry system on their Web site, FinishTiming.com, coaches can manually enter each athlete into the events. Then, after the meet, the results are posted on the site and also are given to coaches immediately after the meet, listing each individual athlete.

"I make sure we have results for every kid who competes," Chatfield said. "That's one thing that will never change."

They're also making meets more efficient. In the past, it might take six hours to finish a track meet, but Chatfield's crew can run an eight-team invitational in three hours.

"It's up to the starters and clerks on how fast you can go," Chatfield said. "We haven't found a starter who can go faster than we can. A lot of the time, it's up to the kids."

As track coach at Shawnee, Garberich remembers the days where he spent more time running a meet than coaching, but thanks to Finish Timing, those days are over.

"I can sit back and coach," Garberich said. "I know it's all taken care of."

The big time

Chatfield and his crew are running some of the biggest meets around, including the 2007 Big East Indoor Track and Field Championships, the 2008 Ohio Association of Track and Cross Country Coaches indoor state meet, the 2008 Ohio Athletic Conference Outdoor Championships and the 2008 Mid-American Conference Championships.

Their largest event to date, however, was the 2007 Ohio High School Athletic Association State Cross Country Championships.

"It's the biggest meet we've done," Chatfield said. "That's what you pride yourself on."

He said the crew prepared six months for the event, and used special radio-frequency identification chips in the runners' bibs to keep track of their times.

Still, he first 30 minutes of the meet didn't go well.

"There was a glitch in the system," Chatfield said. "For a half-hour, I was a frazzled mess."

The problem, however, was a misplaced network wire that was causing the RFID chips to malfunction. From that point forward, the meet ran "beautifully."

"We had results within two to three minutes after each race," Chatfield said. "It worked so well."

FinishTiming.com also took off that day after video of Berkshire High School athlete Claire Markwardt broke her tibia with 200 meters remaining in the Division III girls race and managed to crawl across the finish line.

"We really didn't even know that it happened," Chatfield siad. "We knew she was having trouble getting in. You didn't know the extent of the injury."

Chatfield's camera caught it all of it, and Markwardt became an Internet sensation overnight. The video also was seen on ESPN, "Inside Edition" and almost every local news channel.

"It's a true testament to cross country," Chatfield said. "It gives me chills just watching the video."

Through the popularity of their video and the results, the Web site has received close to 4.5 million hits in the last 12 months.

Not just track

Chatfield's equipment isn't used just for track and cross country.

Using both his motorsports camera and RFID chips, Chatfield is able to time events for the Formula 1 Champboat Grand Prix Series powerboat racing circuit.

His father, Bill Chatfield, owned a team for years and now works for Mercury Outboard motors.

Chatfield timed two races in 2003, and has had a hand in powerboat racing — which hits speeds up to 130 miles per hour — ever since. Finish Timing is the official timing company of the series, and Chatfield also serves as the tech support person for dBcom Marine, an automated race timing and automated scoring system for powerboat racing.

"It keeps turning into something bigger and bigger," Chatfield said.

A growing product

The most amazing thing about Finish Timing's growth is that they haven't advertised.

"Everything has been word of mouth," Chatfield said.

But the business, which started as a hobby, keeps growing. Chatfield is training a third crew, and is in demand to the point where he could run a fourth crew.

"(Athletic directors) will move meets a day or so in order for us to be there," Chatfield said. "They look at it as all the time and hassle it saves them.

"It's pretty close to a full-time business. If you offer the right service, everyone will want to have you."

Chatfield's track record is proof.

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0365 or mcooper@coxohio.com.

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