UTICA - Race officials discussed the highly competitive, and relatively healthy 31st running of the Boilermaker Road Race on Monday, but problems occurred right at the startline for most of the field.

There is a span of 10-15 minutes each year that it takes the whole field from front to back to cross the starting line. And where in that 10-15 minute window did the 9,000 plus runners behind row one start?

The answer is anyone's guess.

"What was downloaded at the start lines at the 15K was just not complete enough to develop any kind of rank or list," said Pat Leone of Leone Timing.

The reason given by Leone Timing, the company contracted to track race times, is because the signal going from chips worn by runners to data collection boxes faced interference from an unknown source.

It wasn't just runners at the back. Leone explained that the signals dropped off-and-on throughout the start, affecting most of the field.

On Monday, race officials tested the timing system to see what went wrong. What they do know is that it wasn't the chips worn by each runner.

"The split systems at the 5K and 10K and the finish line were solid," Leone said.

Meaning finish times are accurate for each runner, but race officials are still looking into where the technical glitch is.

The timing company is reviewing data collected during Monday's test. Originally it was thought that timing was thrown off because of high voltage lines near the start, but it was determined that they had no effect.