We have exciting news today – RaceHero and MotorsportReg.com have been acquired by Hagerty as part of their deepening investment in motorsport! Our team is staying in place and will expand to make RaceHero even better than it is today. New features, better performance and expanded support are just a few of the benefits our race organizers, competitors and spectators can expect going forward.
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Job Opening: Customer Growth & Success
RaceHero is produced by the same team who offers MotorsportReg.com, a software platform for clubs, racetracks and sanctioning bodies to manage motorsport events. We are very excited to grow our customer growth and success team! Our company is fully-remote meaning you can work from anywhere so long as you have a good internet connection and a regular 4-hour overlap with US/Pacific time zone.
While we don’t talk about it in the job posting because it’s a minority of the current position, helping grow and support RaceHero will be part of the responsibilities. Full details and how to apply: http://blog.motorsportreg.com/hiring-customer-growth-success-team
We hope you’ll consider joining our team, or referring people who would be a good fit!
Pit Stop Counts in Live Timing
The NASA 25 Hours of Thunderhill in Northern California is the longest road race in North America each year. It is also an event where the team behind RaceHero directly participates. RaceHero Founder Brian Ghidinelli drove the #3 Tiger Racing / Bavarian Tuning BMW M3 in the top ES class and finished 4th in class and 7th overall behind a list of increasingly-awesome supercars like an Audi R8 LMS, Porsche 911 RSR and Lamborghini Gallardo Super Trofeo.
In addition to being a racer, Brian also serves on the Thunderhill Raceway board a director. In an effort to improve the experience for participants and spectators, we added pit stop support in live timing to help teams strategize the race just like the pros. We worked with the track to install a new timing loop at pit in and coordinated with NASA to provide the necessary extra timing hardware.
The ultimate goal was beautiful – live timing with automatic visual pit stop notifications and counts including the super important “laps since last pit” counter to help identify when a racer might need to stop next. Everything a professional race strategist would use at the 24 Hours of Daytona or Le Mans is now available to every endurance race around the world.
For more information about how to get set up with RaceHero, download our Live Timing Relay for MyLaps. Pit stop support temporarily requires us to mark your race as an endurance event so please contact us for details.
RaceHero powers mobile app for Superkarts! USA
Big news from Las Vegas, Nevada this weekend: the Superkarts! USA SuperNats are celebrating their 20th anniversary. Approximately 500 of the best racers from around the world, including current Indy 500 winner Alexander Rossi, Formula 1 pilot Sergio Perez and IndyCar racer Conor Daly are all pounding around the temporary parking lot circuit at the Westgate Hotel.
We are excited to be part of this historic event by launching the SKUSA live timing and results app powered by RaceHero (and we have to admit, pretty cool to see Formula 1 and IndyCar drivers show up in your app!) Wrapped in the familiar Superkarts! USA blue, iPhone and Android users can exclusively access SKUSA events including ProKart Challenge, Pro Tour and National events for the 2017 season and beyond.
For promoters wishing to provide a bespoke experience to their racers, fans and officials, the RaceHero app can be white labeled, or “themed”, as a drop-in unit for audiences of any size. In addition to the detailed live timing, provisional and official results, entry lists and schedules, RaceHero also supports trackside operations for grid and tech making it a comprehensive, integrated solution from a single provider.
Download the SKUSA app and follow the racing action this weekend on iTunes and Google Play.
For more details about our private-label options for your race series, please contact us.
iOS and Android Apps Now Available
The headline says it all – you can now find RaceHero native apps in the iTunes and Google Play stores:
We’ve focused on building a great cross-device experience for phones, tablets and web browsers, so why download our native app?
- Screen lock is blocked while watching live timing so you never look down and find the screen has gone black
- Better performance: more responsive to touches and taps and faster
- Bottom navigation for switching between live timing, results, entry lists and schedules doesn’t jump around on iOS
- Easy access from your home screen (or ask Siri to open it!)
There are also versions for tablets with more racers on screen. Perfect for enduros! We have been using it like rabid dogs for the past month in testing and at the track. We’d love to hear your feedback in the comments below. If you like the app, giving it a rating in the app store would be much appreciated!
Going slow: is it the Driver or the Car?
Here’s something new on the RaceHero blog: a guest post for drivers that you’re going to love… because we all love to go faster! Working with Ross Bentley, author of the Speed Secrets books, e-books and webinars, we’re sharing an issue from his Speed Secrets Weekly newsletter. It’s a weekly email with juicy content for anyone who wants to perform at their best. This time we’re discussing how to tell when it’s the car (or motorcycle, kart, snowmobile, boat…) and when it’s the driver with one specific technique. Enjoy!
Photo by 15-year old photog Austin Bradshaw of Flying Bye Photography
Driver Control Bandwidth
We know the numbers. They are right there on the dash, glaring at us. Also, we know what our best time has been in the past.
Looking at the infamous “Sheet,” we see the leader’s time.
At this point, it starts to boil inside us: frustration, disbelief, and sometimes anger. “How can we be that far off the pace?” It seems like an impossible jump to the leader’s time. And, to make it more of a pisser, we aren’t even near our own best time.
Instantly, justification attribution kicks in and we start racer bingo. The leader is (insert favorite):
- cheating
- spending more money
- using better tires
- using a better motor
- got a tow
- had better track conditions
- has the newer car
- did we suggest cheating?
At the minimum, anxiety is setting in, if not full blown panic.
Racer Excuse Generator: The winner is a) cheating, b) spending more money, c) using better tires... Click To Tweet
Before the next session, we have to tweak something on the car such as tire pressure, shocks, anything that will make us go faster and try to catch the leader. Alas, we run the next session and we don’t go faster, but we actually go slower! AAARG!!
We have all been there. But what really happened?
Even though we all are quick to make changes to the car, thinking something is wrong with it, or the ambient conditions require a change, there is a high likelihood the car is not the reason for slower times. At this point, we must admit that the biggest variable in racing is driving, and chances are someone else is doing a better job at driving than we are. So what can be done to improve our driving?
Driver control bandwidth is a concept that we rarely think about, if ever. This relates to the specific tasks we perform in the seat and where they occur on the track. In the case mentioned above, it’s likely that our car control points have migrated or have a wider operating range of repeatability. So, we actually end up going slower, not because of setup, but rather less bandwidth for driver control. Just like your internet connection, more bandwidth is more capacity.
We end up going slower, not because of setup, but because of less driver control Click To TweetFrom an engineering standpoint, we can manipulate thrust angles, roll centers, frequency responses, or many other engineering factors by tweaking on the car; however, improving the car in a particular situation requires that it be consistently operated in that situation.
For example: If we have corner brake application points (or any driver task) that vary with each lap, then the handling for that corner becomes a statistical problem rather than a precision engineering challenge, as can be seen in these real-life examples below.
These graphs are the distance traveled per lap from the start/finish line in feet to where the brake pedal was first depressed.
The top graph is from a young inexperienced driver struggling to grasp the concept of reference points and is basically driving by the seat of his pants. The graph on the bottom is one of the best professional drivers I’ve ever worked with who is usually on the pole and often wins. It is easy to see that one is very consistent with driver control tasks and the other is…. well, all over the place and consistently at the back of the pack. Granted, the data is not from the same track, but the trend is obvious. Hint: Which one of these drivers has more consistent apex speeds?
It is easy to embrace and employ this concept to improve your own driving. The goal is to create and use a driving aid that shows us the repeatability of a task or its migration. It really is just that simple, so don’t try to make it hard.
How To Measure for Improvement
A good way to do this is with an objective metric that is readily available to most all racers, which is data. Relax, we’re not talking about those confusing squiggly lines, just a row of numbers listing the feet traveled to the brake (application and/or release) point, lap after lap for a given corner.
Use a driving aid that shows the repeatability of a task on track to improve the driver Click To TweetThis doesn’t require an exotic data system or a complex engineering process. Any of the most basic systems from AiM, CDS, MoTec, Pi or any other brand that will allow you to create a “math channel” will do the job. No special sensors are required, although a brake pressure sensor makes it more clear, but it’s not absolutely required.
It is also nice if the data acquisition software has an export function to take the brake point listing and put it in an Excel spreadsheet (as shown above), but again, that is just eye candy and icing on the cake.
To create this driver aid, start by looking at your data. Identify a distance to the corner in question and pick a point that is a bit short of any anticipated braking point. Remember this distance. You can call it “corner entry.” Next, look through several laps to find a good average distance where the peak brake pressure or peak deceleration G occurs, and remember that number.
Use the math function in your software and create two constants, one for the corner entry distance and the other for the corner mid-distance, using the numbers from above.
Next, create a math channel that uses nested “IF” statements to see if the distance traveled (lap distance) falls between the two constants you created. If so, then check to see if the brake pressure or deceleration G has exceeded a specific value. I like to use 40 psi as my specific threshold value. Once that specific value has been exceeded, we can use this lap distance as the brake application point (as shown in the graphs above) and then make the value of the math channel return to zero for the remainder of the lap.
All that is left to do is to display the maximum value of the math channel in a table style display on your data software. Now you have distance traveled to the brake point for that corner during every lap of the run.
Creating a math channel such as this and using it to improve your driving consistency can result in a major improvement to your lap times.
Struggling on track & unsure whether to change the driver or the car? Start with this graph. Click To TweetWritten by John Block from Auto-Ware for Speed Secrets Weekly. Follow John on Twitter at @autowareinc.
Updates from the NASA Western Championships
I was on site yesterday at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca supporting the National Auto Sport Association (NASA) Western Championships. Walking through Timing and Scoring, NASA Officials had at least one device in front of them and in many cases had secondary tablets or laptops dedicated to displaying RaceHero while they performed official duties on their primary computer. I personally saw dozens of shares on Facebook, all which included a large NASA logo, helping to promote their organization and event.
Since everything was running smoothly, I pulled out my laptop and put the finishing touches on some new features and bug fixes for live timing. These improvements are now live:
- Gaps in collapsed view – on phones, the Gap to the racer ahead now displays in the collapsed view. On tablets and larger devices, you’ll also see Gap to P1. This provides more context without having to tap a racer and see all of their details.
- Better handling for the Finish (Checkered) Flag and Stop Flag in Orbits – the clock now stops properly once the Stop Flag has been clicked in the timing program.
- Results notification stays longer – whenever results are posted, we display a notification at the bottom of live timing that lets you view them if interested. This message disappeared way too fast so now it hangs around for a minute. If it’s in the way, you can dismiss it by tapping the X. The entire notification is now clickable making it much easier to tap with your thumb.
- In certain Orbits configurations, the Overall/By Class toggle might go missing when starting a new run. They now stay visible unless you’re watching a single-class session in which case we hide them.
- Lap time and position charts no longer look like they ate an extra helping of fried chicken early in a run. They now stay nice and skinny whether you have a 3-lap qualifying run or a 500-lap endurance race.
- When embedding our live timing widget in a website, we fixed some browsers from displaying a duplicate scrollbar to clean up the look
That’s all for now! If you are a race organizer or promoter or timing and scoring person, you can download our Relay and start offering RaceHero to your racers free of charge.
Embed Live Timing & Results in your Website
Super excited to share some new features we’ve been working on! One of our goals is to push race data everywhere people want it. Race groups are becoming more web savvy and we know you want to direct racers, spectators, officials and sponsors to your website to build your brand and audience. That’s where our embedded website widgets come in!
Live Timing Widget
Organizers can copy and paste a short snippet into any web page to embed an automatically-updating live timing feed. If you’re not currently racing, we’ll show previous race results. Here’s an example from a sports car racing organization. They bundled our live timing widget with an announcer stream, play-by-play Twitter feed and Disqus forums to build a single experience for race weekends.
Our widget is responsive and automatically adjusts to your web page height and width. It does not require Flash or plugins meaning it works on any device – smartphones, tablets and computers.
Current RaceHero users can grab the code here. New to RaceHero? Get started here.
Race Results Widget
Who loves coming home from a long weekend at the track only to have to update your website with all of your results? Didn’t you just print and publish them at the event? Why do you need to take an extra step?
We didn’t know either.
We created an obvious industry first – when you end a session in your timing and scoring software, RaceHero automatically publishes provisional race results within seconds to every device. And that now includes your website! As fast as results appear on your phone, they also appear on your website using our results embed.
Like all results, timing and scoring officials can mark results as official which instantly updates your website eliminating any Monday-morning duties for T&S or race directors while keeping anxious racers and spectators perfectly satisfied.
From trackside to racers and fans on the web – automatically and instantly!
Current RaceHero users can grab the code here. New clubs, tracks and sanctioning bodies can get started here.
If you’re a racer and would be interested in embedding a live timing widget whenever you’re racing into your website or Facebook fan page, let us know in the comments!
RaceHero Debuts Leader Light Demo at 25 Hours of Thunderhill
IMSA-style system built with off-the-shelf parts brings pro technology and excitement to amateur racing
San Rafael, CA: The National Auto Sport Association (NASA) 25 Hours of Thunderhill presented by Hawk Performance will be easier to follow this weekend with live timing app RaceHero and the introduction of a low-cost leader light system. Unlike proprietary, expensive systems that display a car’s running position using LED lights as seen in the TUDOR Sports Car Series and 24 Hours of Spa, the RaceHero light system is built with off-the-shelf parts and updates continuously around the 3-mile Northern California circuit using an inexpensive mobile phone connection.
The longest North American sports car race is also the darkest with more than 12 hours of nighttime driving. Participants and fans have a difficult time following the storylines and positions of the cars as they circulate in mixed-class racing for more than 600 laps. The RaceHero app keeps everyone – teams, officials and spectators – up to date by delivering real-time race data to smartphones, tablets and computers.
“The amateurs at Thunderhill battle just as fiercely as the pros at Daytona and we’ve designed RaceHero to capture and tell those stories with our advanced timing and scoring integration,” said founder Brian Ghidinelli. “With live timing, race results, entry lists and schedules in one mobile app, it’s the only thing you need during a race weekend to follow the action.”
The leader lights connect the racers in the app to the cars on track creating an exciting second screen experience for motorsport events. The system uses low-cost Arduino computers connected via Bluetooth to an in-car smartphone app that retrieves position data for each car from the RaceHero servers. The total system cost is $75 and was developed in the four weeks prior to the race as a technology showcase.
“I have so much love for professional racing and what their resources let them add to the experience,” said Ghidinelli, “but our leader light demo shows what is possible using smartphones and consumer-grade technology to make racing – at any level – more appealing to both the current and next generation of motorsport enthusiasts.”
The in-car smartphone app is not limited to displaying position on the LED board. It can also provide the racer with tactical and strategic data including lap times, gaps to racers ahead and behind, flag status and official race clock.
NASA co-founder Jerry Kunzman said, “The 25 Hours of Thunderhill has become a premier event attended by drivers and teams from as far away as New Zealand, Europe and Japan. The RaceHero app makes it fun to follow the action and the leader lights will add additional excitement to our TV coverage scheduled to air early 2015.”
The teams running the demonstration leader lights are:
- ES – #6 Stammer Inc / Bavarian Performance BMW M3
- E0 – #31 Hankook Tires / El Diablo Motorsports BMW M3
- E0 – #82 BimmerWorld / Red Line Oil BMW 330i
The 25 Hours of Thunderhill begins Friday, December 5th at 4:45pm Pacific time with a one-hour combined practice/qualifying session. The 25-hour race begins Saturday, December 6th at 11:00am.
Entry lists, schedule, live timing and results will be available on RaceHero at https://racehero.io/orgs/nasa-norcal.
About RaceHero: RaceHero brings everything about race day to your pocket in a fun, social way. By looking beyond simple finishing position, RaceHero highlights big passes, personal bests and epic battles. Access entry lists, schedules, live timing and results from smartphones, tablets and laptops all driven automatically from the existing timing and scoring system. RaceHero is free to event organizers, promoters and racetracks and is available today at https://racehero.io.
Follow RaceHero at twitter.com/RaceHeroApp and facebook.com/RaceHeroApp
About NASA: The National Auto Sport Association (NASA) was formed in 1991 with the premise of delivering high-quality motorsports events to enthusiasts at major racing venues throughout the nation. NASA has created programs that allow owners of both racecars and high-performance street-driven vehicles to enjoy the full performance capabilities of their cars in a controlled professionally managed environment. NASA offers many different programs that will allow you to enjoy motorsports on a number of different levels, including our High Performance Driving Events (HPDE), Rally Sport, Time Trial, NASA-X and Competition Racing programs. For more information, log onto www.nasaproracing.com and connect with the community at Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
Publish Race Results Before You Leave the Track
Has this happened to you or your timing team?
You finish another great weekend at the track as the Chief of Timing and Scoring. You load up your laptops, decoders and gear at 5pm and make the drive home safely. You dump everything in the garage and go to bed exhausted but smiling. Monday is a blur of getting caught up and Tuesday is meetings all day long. The “couple of minutes” you need to open up the timing laptop, generate the result PDFs and upload them to the website are scarce. Friends come over for dinner Wednesday and it’s Thursday night before you finally get a chance to unpack and publish the official race results.
Unless you make your living in timing and scoring, you’ve got other obligations and interests Monday through Friday. Booting up the computer to spit out a bunch of PDFs and update a website is not high on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, let alone your To-Do list. So let us cross it off for you… permanently.
Introducing the RaceHero Results Plugin for Websites
Our Results Plugin automatically updates race results on your website without any action on your part! Provisional results are automatically posted as each session ends. Official results can be uploaded anytime: as they are certified, at the end of each day or the end of the race meeting depending on your schedule and officiating. Adding it to your website requires a one-time cut and paste of a few of lines of HTML.
As soon as results become final, one click replaces provisional results with official results including penalties, adjustments and comments made in the timing software. For most race organizations, your official results will be on your website before you leave the track.
Our Plugin is a win-win – it eliminates the tedious job of generating and uploading PDF results to your website while also getting results into the hands of your racers, officials and spectators as soon as the checkered flag is thrown. By giving something fun and timely to your racers and fans, you will see more sharing on forums and social media which is free marketing for your race series.
How much happier will your racers be without having to wonder when the results will be posted?!? How much happier will your T&S team be without having to come home from a long day at the race track to face more tedious computer work? Those were rhetorical questions, we already know the answers. 🙂
Current RaceHero users, you can get the HTML snippet here. If you’re not using RaceHero yet, see what else you’re missing out on.