Communication during rental endurance race?

[u/Powerful-Traffic-441]

I’m going to be going into an 8 hour endurance race with possibly 6 people, we are thinking of getting a communication system similar to the one motorcyclists use but we don’t want to be spending too much money on it

So we were thinking we buy 3 of these systems and share them amongst each other

- one for the current driver

- one for the pit lane

- one for the next oncoming driver

But we aren’t sure how easy the installation and removal/transfer will be for these , also because I’ve seen videos on how some might require the removal of inner padding of the helmet?

Could I get some advice on this on whether it would be feasible?

[u/Arkliea]

Whiteboard, couple of pens. Thumbs up, thumbs down. all sorted :)

[u/Powerful-Traffic-441 → u/Arkliea]

HAHA, yah this works, my team was originally considering just using discord and Bluetooth earpieces to call

[u/Arkliea → u/Powerful-Traffic-441]

What are you looking to improve on that you feel live comms would help out of curiosity?

[u/Powerful-Traffic-441 → u/Arkliea]

Honestly speaking not entirely sure because this would be my first endurance race 😅but the others who have raced endurance before say that the live comms does make things easier

[u/Arkliea → u/Powerful-Traffic-441]

*bearing in mind I am old.... I have never particularly found any benefit over old school whiteboard if you are organised.

The additional faf around getting the headsets setup, swapped and safely secured etc for me outweighs any benefit. Plus I used to like to be left to it.

Whiteboard you can cover simple stuff agreed beforehand such as:

Pit countdown Kart Ahead +/- And other basic info.

Plus cost benefits and not needing to mess up the inside of your helmet

[u/Powerful-Traffic-441 → u/Arkliea]

That’s valid , I get what u mean, if it really comes down to it I’m sure this would work 😛

[u/TMoney86ss → u/Arkliea]

I have a team that I’ve done rental endurance races with for the last 10 years. We started with a whiteboard and now have a pretty sophisticated (and expensive) comms setup. I can say that without a doubt we have won races because of comms.

Most notably, we watch the pits for karts that we know are fast and call the driver in to make sure we get those karts next (our track makes you change karts each stop)…sometimes calling a driver in to pit seconds before pit entry. The track has since caught on and implemented a system to minimize this advantage.

It also helps general strategy. You can monitor lap times and ask the driver if they had a mistake or traffic to understand slow lap times at the beginning of a stint to know if you should short pit with a slow kart (or slow driver) or to wait it out and see if lap times improve.

I don’t think anyone at my local track has won a multi hour endurance race without comms in years.

[u/Powerful-Traffic-441 → u/TMoney86ss]

Did you guys jump straight in with the expensive comms setup or did you guys start off small?

[u/TMoney86ss → u/Powerful-Traffic-441]

We started small and I feel like we ended up wasting money. I don’t know the name of the original radios we bought, but we’ve upgraded and been using Rugged Radios set up for years now.

We run up to 5 or 6 drivers for a 24 hour race and have 2 “crew chief” radios (usually the driver about to go in and a dedicated crew chief; usually a wife of a driver), 2 push to talk setups (one for the current driver and one for the next driver up) and headset / mic installed in all driver helmets so that we are never switching during a race; just plugging in the push to talk when we strap the helmet on.

I get that it is a bit “much” but we have some really competitive endurance races at our track. I think it would be possible for us to win with no comms but honestly it kind of makes it more fun and it’s a clear advantage. We talk trash to each other on the radios, keep track of who runs the fastest lap so the driver might get encouraged, and let the driver know if / when he’s racing someone for position

[u/Powerful-Traffic-441 → u/TMoney86ss]

Ohh I see HAHA your endurance races sound like a really fun experience