Indy Car Winner Enjoys Z06 With Reckless Abandon
Sam Schmidt became paralyzed from the neck down following a horrific crash but 17 years later he's back behind the wheel of a Z06 Corvette.
1. The tragedy
Sam Schmidt was a driver with a bright future who had 27 Indy Racing League starts under his belt and a win at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. One day in 2000 at the Walt Disney World Speedway in Orlando, his car spun and went into a retaining wall at about 210 mph. At the time he was preparing for the season-opening Indy 200 that would take place just under two weeks away. He was transported to Orlando's Regional Medical Center where he underwent spinal surgery that lasted three hours. Doctors declared him a quadriplegic and gave him the grim news that he would never walk or race again.
2. Unshakable determination
Determined to get back into racing, Schmidt founded his own racing team, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports where he spent the next 15 years working on a return. Working tirelessly with the engineers at Arrow Electronics they designed a car that could be driven on a track and the road for someone like Sam who has lost the use of their limbs. What came from that program was the semi-autonomous Corvette known as SAM or Semi-Autonomous Motorcar.
3. Sam and SAM
SAM is a highly modified Z06 Stingray that has been outfitted with sensors, cameras, and a special breathing tube. The cameras are infrared, there is a complex computer system on board, GPS technology and a breathing system that's connected to the throttle through a sip/puff input. When he blows into the tube, the car moves forward, when he inhales the brakes are applied. The top speed of the car is 185 mph and his goal for this year is to get the car over 200 mph.
4. Some very expensive tech
The four infrared cameras mounted on the car track Schmidt while he wears a cap fitted with reflective tracking balls. He can tilt his head left or right to steer and tilt his head backward in order to accelerate. To brake, Sam can bite down which will set off a pressure sensor in his mouth. The computer recognizes Sam's actions within milliseconds and upon verification, and not the result of an errant sneeze, the car reacts. That GPS unit I mentioned checks the car's location a crazy 100 times a second to ensure the car stays more than one meter from the edge of a track. More work was put into the tech and now the ball tracking has been moved to a pair of special sunglasses that Sam wears as he pilots the Corvette.
5. Sam's return
Schmidt has completed 25 laps which equate to a total of 75 miles and says driving the car feels pretty natural. In late June of last year, Sam even took the Corvette out to Pike's Peak to tackle the serpentine hill climb. The innovation in the SAM project can drastically change the lives of others that are also paralyzed and hope to gain their independence back. Such a system can be used for other applications in the home and work site to open the door to countless technologies. According to the Indianapolis Star, Arrow Motorsports will not patent the tech which will allow other companies to build and innovate off of the base system they created. By the way, here's the video behind that picture of Mario Andretti and Sam hanging out.
6. The need for speed
Schmidt got some time with Jay Leno in which he tells him that since the accident there was very little he had total control over, but the Corvette makes him feel a bit of normalcy again. Because of the Corvette, Schmidt was presented with a new driver's license after the state of Nevada deemed him a well enough driver to have the Stingray out on public roads. Sam remarks to Leno at one point in the video that nothing can stop him and we totally believe it.
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