Summary Table - Sort breaks formulas; is a Pivot table a better solution?

Hello,

I'm producing a spreadsheet that produces race start lists from a list of entries. The list of entries has columns for name, race number, predicted time and event.

From this I need to produce a table for each event that lists the entries in order of predicted time.

Running along side this I have a table that generates the number of people in each race, based on the number of entries, this takes into account that if the number of entries means that there is one spare person, the second to last race is split in half.

I need the table of entries for each event, sorted in performance order, but I also need to split the table at the appropriate points and label each race, so people can see what race they are in.

I thought I'd managed to do this by copying the data to secondary tables on new sheets using =dataentry!C3 type formulas. I used VB to sort the data and to apply a filter when the sheet is activated.

The problem is that when the sort is performed, it alters the =dataentry!C3 type formulas, so that they're no longer in order. What I mean is that where the formulas would have been =C3, =C4, =C5 etc down the column, they have become =C4, =C3, =C5 down the column. Does that make sense?

Anyway, the problem is that the method I've used to highlight the start of a new race, relied on these formulas being in order, so no longer work. Additionally, I don't like the filter running and the data being sorted everytime the sheet is activated, it's clunky and slow and has made the file massive!

I did think I should be able to do this with a pivot table, but everything I try fails, I'm not up to speed with pivot tables, mostly because I can never get them to work, can't work them out with google, so give up and do something manually.

So, any advice?

Thanks

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