Amazing race: blind, but now able to drive
By Danielle Lucey
Mark Riccobono becomes the first driver to loop the track at Daytona International Speedway. Photo courtesy NFB.
F
or the first time in history, blind driver is not an insult.”
Fresh from the driver’s seat, face still flush, Mark Riccobono’s first words to the press and attendees from the National Federation of the Blind brought laughs and a room full of applause. Riccobono had just turned what some consider a joke into reality, becoming the first blind driver to ever go around the racetrack at Daytona International Speedway. A precursor to the Rolex 24 — a 24-hour Grand-Am feat of driver endurance — the
Blind Driver Challenge was the brainchild of the NFB, whose members have spent more than a decade waiting for their goal to be achieved. You don’t need to see to appreciate racing at Daytona. Huge wafts of gasoline and burning rubber hang in the air each time a car blasts by grandstands, which hold the nearly 400 members of the NFB who turned out from all over the country for the event. And then there’s the noise: When the speed of the cars out for the Rolex 24 race hit that wall in the crowd’s ears, Doppler shifting from an impending roar to a passing whiz, the speed and pure mus-
cle of what’s in front of them is evident. For the NFB, the January event was about proving what they’ve always known: You don’t need to see to appreciate driving. What members did need was a little help and ingenuity from some friends in the robotics community to make that possible. The NFB issued a call to action to all American universities, and experts Virginia Tech and TORC Technologies answered. Using technology from the DARPA Urban Challenge, TORC Technologies took its ByWire XGV roboticized Ford Escape and coupled it with Virginia Mission Critical
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Spring 2011
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