Technological innovation to adapt racecars has helped drivers with life-changing injuries to return to the wheel and, in some cases, get back to winning races and championships.
Alex Zanardi, who had both legs amputated after a CART accident at the Lausitzring in 2001, went on to compete for several seasons with prosthetic limbs and then hand controls, achieving success in touring cars and GTs. IndyCar team owner and former driver Sam Schmidt was paralysed below the neck in a crash at Walt Disney World Speedway in 2000 but went on to complete the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb using a breathing tube to apply the throttle and brake, and a camera that converted his head movements into steering output.
A more recent high-speed IndyCar oval accident with life-altering consequences occurred in 2018 when Robert Wickens suffered a spinal cord injury. It left the Canadian unable to drive using his legs, but with the aid of hand controls he managed to return to full-time racing in 2022 and won last year’s IMSA Pilot Challenge TCR title.
In each of those cases, the technology has been developed for the specific needs of the driver, who has come from an existing motorsport background. All of them are uplifting stories of human resilience and impressive engineering. But Wickens wants so-called adaptive racing to become possible for a wider range of people. He wants it to be a potential career starting point, rather than just being a solution for one-off examples. According to data analysis from the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center, there are approximately 18,000 new cases of spinal cord injuries in the United States each year.
Some organisations have already started paving the way towards more accessible adaptive motorsport. United Kingdom-based Team Brit has taken on board several people who have lived with physical impairment or experienced life-changing injuries, giving them opportunities to race against able-bodied competitors. The team has developed a hand control system that is removable to allow drivers with different physical needs to team up for an endurance race. It operates different types of car, including a McLaren 570S GT4 and a BMW M240i. The Team Brit story is covered in the latest issue of Racecar Engineering magazine.
READ MORE: How Team Brit’s adaptive racing technology works
Wickens drives his…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Racecar Engineering…