Mary in the situation where you were hitting the space bar during the track meet you were turning the camera capture on and off. you still needed to read the image to get a time.
Big thing between now and the meet is to figure out how to get the meet manageent software to give you the results you want. figure out what options you have for timing, you sound like the two options are photo finish using finishLynx or hand timing. Hand timing requires you to hand enter bib numbers and times. With the timing camera you read the image to get times and enter the bib numbers either as you read the image or into the Hy-tek before you import the times.