Racing a Real Car While Wearing an Oculus VR Headset (wsj.com)

pbahra writes: In a race that fuses video-game technology and real world driving skill, two professional drivers, on two separate but identical tracks, have raced against each other — effectively blind — while wearing virtual reality headsets attached to their crash helmets. The drivers hurtled around the circuit in two identical 2015 V8 Ford Mustangs, trusting that what they were seeing on their Oculus Rift DK2 VR headsets was a true, real-time representation of how their cars were performing on the actual track. One of the main challenges: tracking the cars' exact positions as they sped around the track without the need for re-calibration. This was necessary so that an exact match could be achieved between what was happening on the physical track and its representation on the VR screens.

Comments

Real Men

[Anonymous Coward]

Real Men wouldn't have been on separate tracks.

Re:Real Men

[Anonymous Coward]

So gay

Re:Real Men

[Anonymous Coward]

Some say, Ben Collin's memoir cost him a position on a popular British TV motoring show.
All we know is, he was called the Stig.

And since Stigs are not humans, your comment does not apply.

Thats so awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

They could have done the exact same thing, but get rid off all the VR and get a stopwatch to determine who won! As an added bonus they could have driven on the same track!

Re:Thats so awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

They could have, but that's what they normally do, so what's the fun in that.

This was an engineering challenge, in terms of latency in particular, and I bet it was fun for the drivers too to have the CGI racetrack.

A positive step

[Anonymous Coward]

I am much more interested in this kind of thing than in Google's nonsense with self-driving cars. I understand Google is paving the way for improved versions of Tesla's autopilot so it is great to see, but as far as personal enjoyment of driving an augmented-reality experience will be the future and bring great benefits.

Re:A positive step

[TWX]

See, to me, this is bass-ackwards. The point of the autonomous automobile is to remove the driver from the equation of basic transportation, or to at least have the option to do so when one doesn't feel like driving.

This thing doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Generally the point in sport driving is to enjoy the drive itself, and to really connect with the machine where it feels like an extension of yourself. Removing that experience in order to simulate it in a 3d shell while still occupying the vehicle makes no sense to me. If you're in the vehicle you'll probably use your own eyes to operate it, or you'll use less expensive vision augmentation technology where your eyes are not adequate, and if you're not occupying the vehicle then you'll probably still get enough bandwidth out of video transmissions from cameras to allow you to operate without needing to encode the experience and then generate that 3d quasi-virtual environment.

I don't really understand what this particular technology is for.

Re:A positive step

[gstoddart]

I would call real-time, high speed driving relying entirely on the VR is fairly impressive in terms of the quality of the system.

If they can navigate a real car around the track, networking people into a simulation is probably much easier.

It's fairly cool, and involved a lot of technology. It may end up just being a PR stunt, but such technology has a way of having someone say "hey, wait a minute, if I had one of those, I could ..."

I should think being able to do this and have it work means you are tracking the real car and the VR car exceedingly well ... which suddenly means there's probably lots of places where remote operation becomes possible.

Re:A positive step

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you're right with regard to sport driving, but in general I think for safety and legal reasons we will see that a human is always required to be in the loop for the foreseeable future. In such a case getting visual cues to potential hazards in the environment might be very useful, and will certainly demonstrate the required data processing technologies that must be improved before we can really trust autonomous vehicles with the safety of pedestrians and animals.

Re:A positive step

[TWX]

Then why are the drivers inside of the vehicle?

The only kinds of places that I can think of that we can't put cameras into and expect them to reliably work are in underwater applications and in extremely harsh post-accident environments like nuclear power plants that have suffered catastrophic failures. Anything beyond these terrestrial applications isn't going to work with this technology because of the latency (ie, can't virtually drive a Martian rover) and while there are submarines and robots for exploring Chernobyl sites like Fukushima Daiichi, the applications for those environments are usually based on slow, methodical processes, not on fast-twitch reactions.

Admittedly if the technology to make the interface work in real-time is actually working then that's pretty neat, but at the same time I still wonder what it's actually for.

Re:A positive step

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the ultimate dream to drive your daughter to school from home using VR while sipping coffee and checking news? Google is definitely not working towards this.

Re: A positive step

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, no. The dream is the car drives itself.

Re:A positive step

[dpidcoe]

See, to me, this is bass-ackwards. The point of the autonomous automobile is to remove the driver from the equation of basic transportation, or to at least have the option to do so when one doesn't feel like driving.

Unrelated to TFA and your point about sport driving (which I agree with completely), the current goal of autonomous vehicles is backwards imo. Rather than shoot for sensationalism (full autonomy), they should be going for things augmenting driver abilities. Lane assist, brake assist, adaptive cruise control, traction control, active stability system, etc. As you integrate those technologies and give them more and more control over the car, what you'd end up with then is a car that basically is driving itself but with the "driver" making the decisions. Twitch the wheel and the car automatically signals, checks its blind spot, then moves over a lane if safe, at which point the driver goes back to reading the morning news as the adaptive cruise maintains safe following distance (pair the system up with a tablet and it could overlay lane status so the "driver" maintains some degree of situational awareness as fed to them by the car). The car could even alter driving modes based on current circumstances, e.g. upon exiting the freeway, the driver is given full manual control until they enter a parking lot and attempt to pull into a space, at which point the car detects it and offers to take over.

Re:A positive step

[yes-but-no]

Then why are the drivers inside of the vehicle?

Because the sponsors are castrol? [see the placement at about 1:15 -- seems they are pouring castrol into the simulator car which is anyway standstill]. May be if it were a tech company, the drivers will be in a data-center kind of environment.

Re:A positive step

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that this is an impressive feat of technology, but not necessarily the smartest idea. Instead of effectively blinding the driver and reproducing reality, this would be a better fit for an AR headset like the MS HoloLens where the second car can be added onto your view, but without blocking your real vision guaranteeing there is no latency or glitches if some other object appears on one track and not the other (ie: animal or debris).

Re:A positive step

[aitikin]

See, to me, this is bass-ackwards. The point of the autonomous automobile is to remove the driver from the equation of basic transportation, or to at least have the option to do so when one doesn't feel like driving.

...they should be going for things augmenting driver abilities. Lane assist, brake assist, adaptive cruise control, traction control, active stability system, etc...

Which one of those aren't implemented yet?

As for the rest of your point, I disagree inherently. I don't trust people to be smart enough to know when they should "Twitch the wheel" and then go back to reading the news. I know too many people who can't even tell they haven't hung their phone up for me to be able to trust that they've let the system properly take control.

Re:A positive step

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why are the drivers inside of the vehicle?

It's a PR stunt.

You could teleoperate the cars and have the same result.

By putting the human in the car, and thereby endangering said human, you demonstrate that your technology is sufficiently robust that a human will trust its life to it.

The goal is to impress upon customers in the teleoperation market that the experience is sufficiently close to "reality" that they no longer need to endanger themselves.

(And a secondary purpose: to impress upon customers in the gaming market that the experience is sufficiently close to "reality" that they'll pay good money for the hardware for a driving sim.)

Re:A positive step

[Anonymous Coward]

The only kinds of places that I can think of that we can't put cameras into and expect them to reliably work are in underwater applications and in extremely harsh post-accident environments like nuclear power plants that have suffered catastrophic failures

Huh? Those sound like great applications for cameras.

Re:A positive step

[TWX]

Yeah, the states that I want an autonomous car to operate in would either be fully autonomous where the car figures out the particulars of where it needs to go, or occupant-instructed, where the car can be given directives to try to follow ("keep left" or "slow down and keep right" or "pull over in the next parking area"), but neither require the car to be operated by the person. This would let a child or someone that does not have a license use the car to get from place to place including establishing reasonable curbside service or the ability to make endpoint-specific decisions.

I would love to have a car capable of sport-driving that could also be fully autonomous. Sometimes I want to enjoy the drive, other times I want to enjoy the view.

Re:A positive step

[shrikel]

Possibly not the same result. The VR headset only supplies visual information, and possibly auditory information as well. In driving -- especially racecar driving -- the tactile and proprioperceptive (i.e. acceleration) data inputs play a big role. If they had a remote driver, it's more likely there would have been problems. Or at least, the drivers wouldn't have driven exactly the same way, since they would be driving "blind" in a more profound sense than the summary implies.

Re:A positive step

[GuB-42]

90% of my driving is not especially enjoyable. Being stuck in traffic or driving for hours at constant speed on straight lines while still needing to maintain attention is not my idea of fun.
And the remaining 10% are not pure bliss either. The public road is not a toy, and if you "enjoy" it too much, cops will remind you about the rules, or worse.

And if I am on the track, there is no way I want any VR stuff. If I pay good money for the real deal, this is not to get some glorified video game.

Re:A positive step

[shrikel]

Though I agree, it was a PR stunt. :)

Re: A positive step

[Anonymous Coward]

No one in their right mind would put a car that drives itself on public roads since they'd be responsible for any death caused by it. If you doubt this, then you can perform a test today by filling a shopping cart with bricks and letting it "drive itself" down a hill. See who the police arrests.

Re: A positive step

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is that if they can do this perfectly, then why not race drones... Or cars that do not have the need for expensive (I mean in terms of mass) safety equipment. Hell, race cars that have rocket launchers or shotguns attached to the hood. Jeez, do you have no imagination?

Re:A positive step

[dpidcoe]

Which one of those aren't implemented yet?

They are implemented, that's the point. What I'm saying to do is implement them more. e.g. lane assist generally just beeps at you or vibrates the wheel on the side you're drifting. The next step would be for it to actually control the steering unless you explicitly override it. Blind spot detection also just beeps at you if you signal and/or drift lanes while there's something there. The enhanced version just flat out wouldn't let you do it.

As for the rest of your point, I disagree inherently. I don't trust people to be smart enough to know when they should "Twitch the wheel" and then go back to reading the news. I know too many people who can't even tell they haven't hung their phone up for me to be able to trust that they've let the system properly take control.

Yet you trust that they'd let a self driving car take control? (assuming that self driving cars have a manual function, which would be asinnie not to include). The whole point of the system I was describing is that the car is in control, it's just that the car has no executive function and allows the driver to guide it. If the driver were to bail out while swerving down the freeway at 80mph, the car would revert to a basic lane following behavior, presumably coming to a stop once it runs out of freeway and encounters another car at a traffic light (at which point the adaptive cruise control would perform an emergency braking maneuver so as to not hit the car in front).

Think of it more like a self driving car in which the user can press buttons to give it turn by turn directions.

Re:A positive step

[dpidcoe]

I would love to have a car capable of sport-driving that could also be fully autonomous. Sometimes I want to enjoy the drive, other times I want to enjoy the view.

I feel like those two things are mutually exclusive (depending on your definition of sport-driving). All of the things required for a sporty car (small, lightweight, lots of internal bracing, good balance, as much power from as little engine as possible) conflict with all of the space and weight considerations of the sensors/electronics/actuators that would be required to make something fully autonomous.

Re:A positive step

[TWX]

I donno, I have an awful lot of fun in my '95 Impala, and it's bigger than and just as heavy as anything else on the road today short of a full-sized truck.

Re:A positive step

[dinfinity]

They are implemented, that's the point. What I'm saying to do is implement them more.

Let me guess: You're some kind of well-paid manager somewhere.

Re:A positive step

[Anonymous Coward]

> The enhanced version just flat out wouldn't let you do it.

Not just no, but fuck no.

If a driver can't predict the behavior of your car, the driver will be made *far* more dangerous.

Small corrections (e.g. ABS and traction control) are acceptable. *Refusing* to perform the action demanded by the driver? Hell no. Drivers are not professionals, do not receive mandatory training, and will not understand why the car "doesn't work sometimes". This is DANGEROUS.

The relatively safe modes of operation are:
* Minor driver assist with commanded operation.
* Explicitly driver-initiated fully automatic action. (e.g. full-auto parallel parking)
* Fully automated operation of the vehicle.

You *cannot* refuse to perform a commanded operation when the driver is in control of the vehicle.

Re:A positive step

[KGIII]

Take your ABS-equipped vehicle out in the snow. Go fast. Stomp on the brakes. The car just refused to perform an operation - it did not lock the brakes when you told it to. It did not apply the full force of the brakes as instructed.

For the record, being able to disable ABS for certain driving styles would be enjoyable for me but I'm glad that people have access to them.

Re:A positive step

[Spinalcold]

That is probably what consumers what, but the goal of autonomous cars is much grander than that. They market it as driving for you as a way to sell it because safety sells, at least when it comes to cars. The goal is actually to network transportation to make it much more effective, so instead of having 1 self-driving car, the whole road is self-driving. This way they can route around congestion, bad weather, construction, etc.

Re:A positive step

[whopub]

I am much more interested in this kind of thing than in Google's nonsense with self-driving cars. I understand Google is paving the way for improved versions of Tesla's autopilot so it is great to see, but as far as personal enjoyment of driving an augmented-reality experience will be the future and bring great benefits.

Yeah, it's great to see the driving experience being augmented for a change, instead of being dumbed down, which seems to be the norm these days. Still, I can see a lot of value in self-driving cars, even for private use, under certain circumstances or for some people.

Re:A positive step

[whopub]

I still wonder what it's actually for...

Entertainment is always an option, even if nothing else comes out of it. Just imagine playing something like Battlefield YOURSELF, like in paintball style, but wearing VR glasses instead of a protective mask. All of the needed ingredients seem to be maturing, like VR displays and cameras, motion control, etc. I can almost see myself moving to Battlefield 1942 Desert Combat's Al Nas or Lost Village... I could finally get off the damn chair!

Re:A positive step

[dotancohen]

Then why are the drivers inside of the vehicle?

1. No FBW steering or braking.
2. Non-visual senses such as acceleration and sound are very important to performance, especially on a racetrack.

Re:A positive step

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's the next in a series of PR stunts by Castrol for their "super strong Titanium oil" - here's one from six months ago to give you a clue, https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:A positive step

[Dashiva Dan]

I still wonder what it's actually for...

Entertainment is always an option, even if nothing else comes out of it. Just imagine playing something like Battlefield YOURSELF, like in paintball style, but wearing VR glasses instead of a protective mask. All of the needed ingredients seem to be maturing, like VR displays and cameras, motion control, etc. I can almost see myself moving to Battlefield 1942 Desert Combat's Al Nas or Lost Village... I could finally get off the damn chair!

This.
The headset merely replaces the real boring visuals with CG, so instead of seeing your green paintball explode on your mate's pokemon tshirt instead you see a bullet explode through their high tech chest armour, emblazoned with their team's emblem, and if they get up again afterwards and try to shoot you, it won't matter so much, aside for the paintball impact, they'll still appear dead to you and you can continue playing. They've already got a few places experimenting with this sort of thing (One in Melbourne, Australia, that I might go check out this christmas)

Re:A positive step

[dpidcoe]

You *cannot* refuse to perform a commanded operation when the driver is in control of the vehicle.

Yes you can. ABS refuses to stop if it senses the wheels locking up. Traction control refuses to give full power to a wheel if it senses slippage. There's no reason that the blind spot detector can't refuse to let you switch lanes if it detects a motorcycle there.

And if flat out refusing the command has you worried (in which case, why don't fully autonomous cars also have you worried?), it could just provide the refusal as making the steering wheel hard to turn in that direction rather than flat out locking it.

Re:A positive step

[Ranbot]

Then why are the drivers inside of the vehicle?

The only kinds of places that I can think of...underwater applications...nuclear...failures...the applications for those environments are usually based on slow, methodical processes, not on fast-twitch reactions....Admittedly if the technology to make the interface work in real-time is actually working then that's pretty neat, but at the same time I still wonder what it's actually for.

The military has already been researching and investing in similar technology for vehicles with limited views and/or armoring, like tanks, trucks, helicopters, planes, etc. Transferring this tech to entertainment applications was already stated.

Cool, interesting post.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for post, I'll check it out!

Who says it's virtual?

[RobinH]

This assumes that what you're seeing with your eyes is "reality". There's no absolute proof of that. :)

Re:Who says it's virtual?

[allcoolnameswheretak]

Nobody sees reality. Everybody "sees" the light that is reflected by objects, as perceived by the eye and interpreted by the brain. You could say what we see is a three-level abstraction of reality. And in this way we see only a tiny bubble of the things that reflect enough of the right light to be perceived by our eyes, that are unoccluded, and in our field of view. So reality is filtered three times before we are allowed to see it. Then of course we are limited to see the things sharing the same tiny bubble of time and space in the same dimensions we inhabit.

This body is a great filter!

Re:Who says it's virtual?

[Anonymous Coward]

Speak for yourself, man, these pink elephants are a blast to hang out with!

Huh?

[gstoddart]

on two separate but identical tracks

How do you do that? I should think building a second track which is identical to the first would be a hell of a feat.

All it would take it relatively small differences in the track and it's going to make a huge difference.

I've never heard of such a thing, any civil engineers who could tell us how hard it is to have two identical race tracks? I just can't see it being easy to get the same grading and all that in two separate places.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you look at the video they just setup some cones on some dirt to make a "racetrack".

Re:Huh?

[Archangel Michael]

We all know that Separate but equal isn't.

Re:Huh?

[Minupla]

They laid the 'track' out with cones. When you have VR, you don't need walls :)

Min

Re:Huh?

[gstoddart]

Well, I was thinking more in terms of grading and slope of places which would affect the driving.

But if they're both just on a flat track, then it's less of a deal.

I was just picturing trying to simulate something like the famous corkscrew turn at Laguna Seca -- and there's no way in hell you can simulate that on a track laid out with cones.

Re:Huh?

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

Sounds like a mix of quotes from The Matrix and Back to the Future:

VR means fasten your seat belt Dorothy, 'cause where we're going, we don't need roads.

Re:Huh?

[bored_engineer]

With machine control and a local positioning system, it's probably repeatable within a few inches horizontally. Vertical repeatability is a little bit harder, both because of the limits of GNSS and because of variability in material.

Re:Huh?

[Solandri]

How do you do that? I should think building a second track which is identical to the first would be a hell of a feat.

All it would take it relatively small differences in the track and it's going to make a huge difference.

We ran into this issue while programming networked simulators for the USAF. When you have two simulators interacting with each other, you can't just spam position updates as fast as you can. You'll quickly saturate the network bandwidth if you do. Consequently, you have to rely on less-frequent position updates, and dead reckoning based on velocity and orientation in between those updates.

A side-effect of this is that formation flying becomes really difficult. If two simulated planes are flying at 1000 kph, even with position updates every 100 milliseconds, they will move 28 meters in between position updates. So small errors in each plane's orientation cause each pilot to see the "other" plane drift by several cm or decimeters, before its location "jumps" back to the true location with the next position update. It breaks down the realism of the simulation, and makes flying in formation virtually impossible. (Our solution was to move objects in formation into a new reference frame relative to the "lead" plane, so that their relative velocities were much lower, resulting in less jumping.)

Anyhow, the point is, if you're spamming position updates at 60 Hz, and the car is moving at 100 kph, then it will travel a half meter between each position update. Consequently the error in positioning the cars next to each other in the simulation is potentially much greater than any error in building two "identical" tracks. You don't want to risk colliding two real cars controlled in this manner because the VR simulation didn't show one car in the proper place, or because a driver sees the other car jumping around in an unpredictable manner because the VR only updates at 60 Hz. So you put them on separate tracks, and overlap the two in the simulation, using a smoothing algorithm to minimize the "jumping". The catch being the smoothing algorithm probably eliminates many of the subtle millisecond cues these drivers use to keep from bumping into each other when side-by-side at 100 kph.

Re:Huh?

[tinkerton]

A flat track with the same predictable surface everywhere too so you don't have to read it all the time.

don't give my son any ideas

[turkeydance]

c'mon, man!

How to mess with a driver

[T.E.D.]

Use The Force, Luke.

Let go.

Luke, trust me.

Re:How to mess with a driver

[Anonymous Coward]

"Luke, you've turned off your targeting computer. Whats wrong?!"

Already done - but not with a car

[bickerdyke]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

They also had the same problem of tracking the car exactly as they found that even the difference between front and back seats would cause nausea.

Re:Already done - but not with a car

[thinkwaitfast]

What did I just watch, or not watch? It was a bunch of non coherent images in a random order.

Re:Already done - but not with a car

[bickerdyke]

switching between virtual view and real coaster. Probably can't brin those two sensations into a video in a more coherent way, but here is the manufacturers homepage.

http://www.vrcoaster.com/index...

Re:Already done - but not with a car

[BitZtream]

How much does your neck hate you after riding a roller coaster with that thing on your head?

Re:Already done - but not with a car

[bickerdyke]

No idea. but I rode that coaster when I was a kid. It's rather tame . That's how they had the idea to buff it up. Bunch of cellphones was cheaper than tearing it down :-)

Re:I'm just an another AC

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

HUD Display System

[foxalopex]

Actually this technology if it could be implemented reliably could be very useful. Imagine if you could have a full heads up display where there's no blind spots coupled with self-driving technology to alert you visibly on the screen if you were about to slam into another object or point out potholes, ect with driving guidance. I imagine the military might want something like this as well as the windows usually arn't as well armoured as the vehicle itself or there's a tonne of blind spots in an actual tank.

Re:HUD Display System

[Anonymous Coward]

Use the force, Luke.

Everything is being Recorded.

[CrashNBrn]

Everything is being Recorded --- that's the point. There will also be driver-less ("A.I." only) Nascar races. The data from these kinds of experiments is going to be extremely valuable. I would lay odds on Nascar being completely driver-less --- as far as having a physical driver in the car within the foreseeable future.

Re:Everything is being Recorded.

[TWX]

Everything is being Recorded --- that's the point. There will also be driver-less ("A.I." only) Nascar races. The data from these kinds of experiments is going to be extremely valuable. I would lay odds on Nascar being completely driver-less --- as far as having a physical driver in the car within the foreseeable future.

NASCAR fans are all about the drivers. Some fans do care about branding, but the cars all originate from a handful of chassis builders anyway, so branding is limited to stickers and drivetrains. It becomes about the driver and their role in winning, or who's the villain, or who's the beacon of clean driving.

Re:Everything is being Recorded.

[Anonymous Coward]

NASCAR won't be driverless. Neither will Formula 1. NASCAR and FIA may add driverless series, but they won't do away with the current series that have drivers in the cars. If you take the drivers out, it becomes a very different sport, and some would argue it would no longer be a sport at all. There's a very significant physical toll placed on the drivers due to the endurance and, especially in F1, the forces on the drivers due to acceleration, deceleration, and curves. There are curves in F1 circuits where the forces at F1 speeds are strong enough to make it impossible for the drivers to breathe. The physical demands just aren't the same if you take the drivers out of the cars. It would be a completely different sport.

F1 is looking to cut costs because of the financial issues many teams face. VR cars would likely increase those costs significantly. NASCAR is decidedly low-tech when it comes to race day technology. Besides, the cars are supposed to be stock cars, and a VR car would be very different from that. There's also not a strong reason to do this because NASCAR and F1 are actually quite safe. F1 took a lot of steps to improve safety in response to the crash and death of Jules Bianchi. NASCAR completely redesigned their cars after the crash that killed Dale Earnhardt. Many of the tracks have also been modified to make them safer.

I just don't see it happening anytime soon. I could see NASCAR or FIA creating new races, but they won't do away with the current series that have drivers in the cars.

watch the video, it's just an ad

[Anonymous Coward]

The cars were clipping right through rocks, while someone is holding a tablet with an animation of the engine's cylinders? Not sure this even happened. It's a Castrol / Ford ad.

Racing without Safety Rules

[Roger W Moore]

While I expect that you are correct about the non-visual feedback some of this can be simulated e.g. by tipping the drivers chair back for acceleration. While this might not be perfect I would love to see what a Formula 1-style race would look like if you had the drivers sitting safely in chairs so you could remove all the rules which slow the cars down to make it safer for a driver in the vehicle.

Re:Racing without Safety Rules

[TWX]

You'd probably have too many crashes. Even without a life-loss incident you'd have a lot of expensive machinery wrecked. Granted, you could not no longer design cars with the occupant's safety in mind, but even without having to spend the money on that aspect the cars are still very expensive to build. Losing them due to operators pushing the cars past the point of stability would be pricey.

Re:Racing without Safety Rules

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't completely agree. I'm not sure that speeding the cars up would lead to a lot more crashes, though the crashes would be more severe at higher speeds. Limits on the cars aren't the only thing slowing them down, either; tracks have been modified to reduce speeds.

One of the things the three practice sessions accomplish is to allow the drivers to learn how to drive a particular track and how far they can push the car. F1 drivers don't really push the cars to the limit on race day. The fastest times are in qualifying, and there's a significant difference between those speeds and on race day. Because they only run a few laps in qualifying, they don't have to concern themselves nearly as much with tire wear. There's no incentive to push too hard during the race because it will result in more pit stops to change the tires, and will actually cost more time from pitting than is gained from going faster. It's possible to make the tires harder so they last longer, but this comes at the expense of speed.

You could gain some speed on the straight section of courses, but I'm not sure it would make a big difference in the racing. F1 is a very technical style of racing. I don't think that making the cars faster would help that much in the technical parts of courses. You'd have to increase the downforce to go through the corners faster, but that increases the wear on the tires.

Without major changes, I'd guess you could probably squeeze out about 10% more speed from the cars. Beyond that, you'd need significant changes to the cars and/or to change the courses. But some of the best F1 racing you'll see is actually pretty slow. For example, the Circuit de Monaco is a great course, but it's also by far the slowest in F1.

I think you'd see a bigger difference if NASCAR speeds increased. There are enough cautions that you could probably get away without as much concern for tire degradation.

Re:Racing without Safety Rules

[Dashiva Dan]

You'd probably have too many crashes. Even without a life-loss incident you'd have a lot of expensive machinery wrecked. Granted, you could not no longer design cars with the occupant's safety in mind, but even without having to spend the money on that aspect the cars are still very expensive to build. Losing them due to operators pushing the cars past the point of stability would be pricey.

I don't see cost being a prohibitive factor. Look at battle bots...... What is being described is very similar - and while the primary purpose might not be destruction, having more of it won't scare the viewers (or sponsors) away, and with enough sponsors, you can burn the stadium to the ground as a finale and still cover costs.

Utterly worthless - the article

[argStyopa]

Sounds interesting.
Would be great if they said:
- how it worked
- did it work?
- what speeds did they achieve
- driver's opinions
- surprises?
- how did they cope with in-race obstacles? Could they just drive over them?
- same with the other car, a HUGE part of racing is positioning...in this could they just drive through the other car?

BUT THEY DON'T
Worthless fucking promo video.

It's not suppose to make sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a bit of irony for the hipster in all of us.

Once I have a VR head set, I will model my computer room and throw a virtual desktop in to my program, and position it right over my virtual model of my monitor, so I can sit and work on my real computer and stare at my real monitor, even though the monitor is turned off in the real world.

It won't make any sense. But it will be really cool for no reason.

Re:It's not suppose to make sense.

[TWX]

You'd be better off removing the polarized film from an LCD panel and installing that film on a pair of glasses. You'd have a monitor that only you could see.