For us involved in the world of motorsports, it seems ridiculous to even question whether or not a racing driver is an athlete or not. However, even some professional athletes seem to think "driving" is not a sport, ***cough*** Donovan McNabb.
During IndyCar's recent official test at Barber Motorsports Park, we were able to work with the folks at Zephyr Technology and Yellowcog to obtain real-time biometric data from driver Josef Newgarden. For the purposes of this first test, we simply monitored his heart rate and respiratory rate - both resting and while on a hot lap.
So, in an attempt to prove to any doubters that a racing driver is not an athlete, here is a one lap on-board video with Josef, which provides over lays for both his heart rate and respiratory rate at each section of the track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMqVmilOwU4
Please feel free to share with your Followers on Twitter, Fans on Facebook, etc.
Thank you, enjoy and if you have any questions or comments, feel free to shoot them over. We are working on quite a few things with this technology and hope to have some amazing real-time data for fans watching the Indy 500.
Jason Bell