Yellowcog was at the Iowa Corn Indy 300 to manage the monitoring of driver vital signs and also do a few bits to camera for an upcoming ESPN Sport Science show. Sport Science is the three-time Emmy winning TV show produced by BASE Productions. It specialises in delving deep into sports to show the skill and physicality involved. We were there with Verizon, McgarryBowen, BASE Productions, ESPN, Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing and Team Penske.

It was an interesting and very enjoyable five days. ESPN’s Sport Science were shooting a video about what drivers undergo as they race around a track. IndyCar drivers Josef Newgarden (Car 67, SFHR) and Helio Castroneves (Car 3, Penske) fell under the spotlight, being monitored by yellowcog in multiple sessions. I won’t steal any thunder from the show by revealing what we found out but it is fascinating stuff.

The programme is out August 17th – it is only a short piece so yellowcog may not appear on screen but of course the driver data is the interesting bit!

As to the race, the banked oval track is small compared to the likes of The Brickyard but the racing was as exciting as it gets. Rain caused delays but eventually the race was fully underway. There were a few crashes (Sato, Aleshin, Carpenter and Montoya), some awesome passes and a fantastic result for SFHR’s Josef with a second-place finish (matching his IndyCar career best).

 

Published: 15 July 2014

Yellowcog spent ten days on the Isle of Man as part of a world record attempt by Mark Higgins. Higgins was driving Subaru’s brand new 2015 WRX STI attempting to beat the current record for a production car over the 37.8 mile TT course.

Our part of the action was to monitor the car but also Mark Higgins himself. We used our Pilot™ physiological monitoring system to wirelessly collect heart rate, breathing, temperature and g-force. This physiological information was combined with GPS and car data. Yellowcog were on active duty for each attempt, ensuring that all the equipment was primed and ready-to-go.

We took a huge number of photos and videos while we were at the event. Some of them appear in this article, others can be found on our other pages (YouTube, Facebook and Twitter). Subaru have produced a stunning video of the whole challenge and yellowcog’s Marc Smith pops up to describe our part in it all:

North One TV were the resident broadcasters for the entire TT event. For ten days Yellowcog became part of a North One TV crew there specifically to film Higgins’s progress with on-board, track-side, helicopter and slow motion cameras around the circuit. There were delays throughout the filming since the TT bikes can’t go out on a wet track and when they can’t go out the entire circuit is opened back up to normal traffic. This left the Subaru’s runs having to fit between the existing racing since the TT is all about the bikes.

There were many interesting moments. The first run had to be aborted but Higgins broke the lap record in each of his next two runs setting a final time of 19 minutes and 15 seconds – and average speed around the circuit of 117.51mph. There was also another “moment”, coming into Signpost, shown right, he didn’t have enough traction to get the car under control and had to resort to a quick application of the handbrake. We captured the physiology at every part of the track and this was clearly seen, from inside and out, as a sharp intake of breath.

There is also a full unbroken driver point of view lap narrated by Mark Higgins:

Published: 23 June 2014

Yellowcog is ready for an exciting project on the Isle of Man: a world record attempt by three-time British rally champion Mark Higgins.

Higgins will be attempting to beat the current record for a production car over the 37.8 mile TT course which stands at 19 minutes and 37 seconds and was set by Higgins himself in 2011 in a Subaru WRX STI.

Higgins is set to return in Subaru’s brand new 2015 WRX STI. The car is ready to ship to the Isle of Man and is a stock US spec machine albeit with modified suspension and all the vital safety features like roll cage and fire suppression systems.

Our part of the action will be to monitor the car but also Mark Higgins himself. We’ll be using our Pilot™ physiological monitoring system to wirelessly collect heart rate, breathing, temperature and g-force and then seamlessly combine it with the car telemetry and GPS data.

Higgins will be making three attempts at a new record on Saturday 31st May, Monday 2nd June and Wednesday 4th June. The laps will happen under closed road conditions so only the weather can get in Higgins’s way.

Here’s a video of Higgins’s record breaking lap from 2011. It includes a segment at the end on his famous “moment” at Brey Hill where he loses the car for a time before dragging it back under control.

 

 

Published: 23 May 2014

Yellowcog’s Pilot™ driver monitoring system will be used this weekend in the Verizon IndyCar Series Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama, held at the Barber Motorsports Park.

Once again Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing driver Josef Newgarden will have his vital signs transmitted via the car’s existing on-board telemetry system straight to the pit wall. The data will include heart rate, breathing rate, g-forces, temperature and more.

So far, Josef’s vital signs have only been collected in test sessions but they have already proven a rich source of performance information. The work is being carried out in collaboration with Rising Star Racing on the ConnectedDriver programme. Rising Star Racing put together a great video of one of Josef’s flying laps overlaid with vital signs information so you can see the immense workload a modern racing driver is subjected to.

We have had a lot of interest in driver monitoring over the last few months and will be rolling out to more teams very soon. If you are interested in the Yellowcog’s Pilot™ system then contact us via the www.yellowcog.com website.

 

Published: 25 April 2014