SCORE Journal - The Official Publication of SCORE Off-Road Racing
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/519117
rider's early warning system in Baja races. But in addition to this, the foundation is also dedicated to incorporating technological advances that can speed awareness of an accident, in order to more effectively employing first responders to the scene. As its mission statement says on the home page of the foundation's website, www.kurtcaselli.com, "The focus of the Foundation is the safety of riders and racers in the off-road motorcycling industry." It should, perhaps, be no surprise, that the Kurt Caselli Foundation has taken off quickly and in a big way. Within a couple months, the foundation put together enough funding to have a helicopter for lead bikes, as well as a truck that pre-runs the course before the first bike, to inspect the first initial miles of course for hazards as well as let locals and spectators know race vehicles would soon follow. Before the foundation, only factory or very well-funded privateer teams could afford to have a helicopter whose crew would fly ahead and be able to spot potentially dangerous situations before the rider happened upon it. After the factories decided not to participate in the 2014 SCORE World Desert Championship series, the privateer teams that did take part, weren't able to come up with enough budget for their own air support and were afraid they'd have nothing. The foundation now provides a helicopter to sweep the course for the start leaders along with SCORE's investment with a helicopter that now includes medical personnel to provide assistance when necessary. That, of course, was just one of several goals the Kurt Caselli Foundation achieved in its first year. As it grows in its second year, there are plenty of other items on the table for the foundation to continue working on. As KCF Safety Advisor Quinn Cody says, "KTM and FMF are right behind us so it's here for the long term. That's kind of what we're working on right now, long-term goals, and some programs that we can build and sustain well into the future. I think one of the big strides forward has been with the technology. The software SCORE is using now is much more advanced than what they were using in 2013. It's much easier for the SCORE ops guys to track all the vehicles. They actually have a way to tell the status of a vehicle; if it's been stopped, how long it's been stopped, and that kind of thing. It also enables teams and officials to categorize stuff. You can imagine sitting there at a computer screen for 20 hours straight, and there are 250 little dots bouncing around. It's not easy to keep track of that! This software that we've worked on with Volocore makes it a lot easier for those guys to keep track of everybody." The Foundation's partnering with SCORE and Volocore offers unique and potentially life-saving functions that have not been available before. "The Volocore tracker is what we're developing and it's much more advanced than the Spot. It incorporates pass-aware functions so if a faster vehicle like an Unlimited Trophy Truck is catching a slower moving motorcycle, the system will set off an alarm on the bike. This gives the rider a warning and enough time so they can pull over and get out of the way," says Cody. "In addition to that, the Volocore system also knows when there is a downed rider. So if a bike is laying on its side, it'll automatically transmit an alarm to the command center saying there's a rider down." EVEN SEEING JUST A LIFE- SIZE CUTOUT OF THE MAN IS ENOUGH TO BRING A SMILE TO THE FACES OF THOSE WHO KNEW HIM AND HIS HUMOROUS SIDE. 085 SCORE JOURNAL