Data feed, parsing, ranking.

Alright guys I need some direction here. I'm pretty solid in Excel expect when it comes to programming or Macros however I am willing to put in the work, but I need a guiding step here. The problem:

I am helping a non profit charity triathlon organization. I need a way to pull information about the runners who finish the race into an Excel spreadsheet. As the runners cross the finish line, the chip on their leg interacts with the finish line itself and the runner's time is recorded. There is already a mechanism in place to take the runner's information (unique identification, time, age group, etc) and put it into a .txt file and send it to an email address.

The format of the .txt file will be something like this: DF6E757 09:07:58.25 0 1E 10000 E5

Where the first variable is unique identification, the second, race time, etc, etc.

My task is to interact with this email address, and pull the information from the .txt file into a spreadsheet and organize it. Once the information is in there, I know how to sort the data in order to rank the finishers (this race is not based on time alone).

Can I do this? Should I use Excel? Can we create a continuously updating Excel document that pulls information out of an email's inbox with an attached .txt file?

-Jim

Hey thank you so much. I can work with this. I should have been able to Google it myself... feeling silly.