Quadriplegic former racer to lap Indy thanks to hands-free Corvette

Sam Schmidt was never a traditional racer; he didn't launch his career until the relatively ripe age of 31, but thanks to natural talent spent three years in IndyCar racing, with some success. That promise ended brutally in 2000, when an off-season testing crash cut his spinal cord and left him paralyzed from the chest down, but Schmidt shifted to owning and managing Indy-related teams instead with good results.

Later this month, Schmidt will drive a car around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway 15 years after he last raced there — thanks to the help of technology that its creators hope could someday let other quadriplegics take the wheel, in what they call the SAM Project, for "semi-autonomous motorcar."

Built by Arrow Electronics and several other firms, Schmidt's car was made possible by the same kind of technology that makes self-driving cars possible. Using a 2014 Chevy Corvette Stingray, engineers from Arrow Electronics and other firms had to integrate software controls, GPS sensors and special steering inputs from two sources — a bite sensor that Schmidt will use for braking, and four infrared cameras mounted on a hat that will let Schmidt steer by tilting his head and accelerate.

To ensure his safety on the track, the Stingray will have a GPS bumper that keeps it a minimum of 1.5 meters from the edge of the track, leaving Schmidt with 10 meters of clearance in the center. If something goes wrong, engineers will be able to take over the car remotely.

Schmidt told the Indianapolis Star that safety was his first concern, but that driving slowly after his years running faster than 200 mph held little interest. "I had to be the one driving the car...I must average over 100 mph,” he said. “(The engineers) laughed.”

As far as self-driving technology has come, it's not yet been proven effective for everyday use among abled-bodied drivers, let alone those with disabilities. Yet assuming Schmidt's drive goes as planned, Arrow will have successfully shown just how much potential those systems have to change people's lives. As Schmidt himself demonstrates, it's not when you start but how you keep running that determines whether you win a race.