The Honolulu Marathon Association yesterday sued a Michigan company whose equipment failed to record times of thousands of runners in the 2007 event.

SA Innovations was hired to record times of tens of thousands of runners. The company's system uses an electronic chip attached to each runner.

Because the system failed, marathon officials had to review many hours of video to determine finish times for all 23,299 finishers, the lawsuit said.

In June, the company agreed to pay $20,000 by Sept. 8 and $10,000 by Dec. 1, the lawsuit said. But the company failed to pay, the association said, prompting the lawsuit.

It was the first time the Honolulu Marathon used that vendor. For the races from 2000 through 2006, the marathon successfully used the ChampionChip timing system, the lawsuit said.

SA Innovations officials could not be reached for comment yesterday.