Fatigue – that’s a word you hear being thrown about a lot at endurance racing events. We know that as drivers do long stints behind the wheel, fatigue starts setting in and the lap times start to drop steadily. But the $64,000 question is how long can a driver stay out on track without compromising the performance of his/her car or the safety of the other competitors. People keep throwing around the statistic of F1 drivers having an average heart rate of 170 bpm for the 90 odd minute duration of the race. That data might be useful for a young fit F1 driver who spends the entire duration of the race on the ragged edge, but is not very relevant to the average Lemons driver who is generally older, considerably less fit, often drives longer stints and (speaking for myself) is generally well under the limit.… Read the rest
Tag: fitness
At the last GGLC autocross Alex and I decided to try out a little experiment to see how your heart rate changes during the race. We used a Polar S720i to record his heart rate, an iPhone for video and a DL1 data logger to record G-force and speed readings. I used some simple PHP magic to sync the two data files together and used the Chasecam Dashware system to create this finished video.
You can see the speed, heart rate (BPM), longitudinal G (acceleration + braking) and lateral G in the dashboard on the top of the video. His average heart rate was in the low nineties while on the grid and rises to to 101 just before the start of the run.… Read the rest