How to move the pit canopy inside the box

In this article you will discover the Race Case solution that allowed Team Kessel to move the pit canopy inside the pit.

It is a solution that allows engineers and technicians to work in easier conditions, to increase performance and always aiming for victory.

In fact, during the endurance races, the technical staff of Team Kessel was forced to spend from 6 to 24 hours on the trackside.

Add assembly and disassembly of all the equipment. In the heat during the day, in the cold at night, and zigzagging between trackside and pit.

If you run a team in endurance racing, I'm sure this stress is not new to you. During a long-distance race, the team's physical and mental endurance is always put to the test.

Think of the 6 hours of Spa, for example, where temperatures soar above 30 degrees.

Glued to a stool inside the pit canopy, engineers, team managers and telemeters are constantly fighting with the sun's reflection on the screen.

With the heat and the deafening noise of the pit lane, it is complicated to maintain the freshness needed to work on strategies to win the competition.

These problems gave rise to Team Kessel's intuition to place "the brain of the race" inside the pit lane, where comfort is decidedly greater.

And that's not all. Inside the box, the race strategy can be kept away from prying eyes.

So let's see how the tailor-made Race Case has been designed to make this new working arrangement of Team Kessel possible: the telemetry box.

Team Kessel's objective was to create an ideal working situation for the various members of the team.

In order not to compromise the efficiency of the technical staff, it was necessary to create a workstation equipped with all the monitoring and communication instruments.

For this reason, the Team commissioned us to design a telemetry case with 6 monitors and all the instrumentation of a strategic workstation.

Unlike the telemetry stations already existing, the case realized for the Kessel Team responds to 3 specific needs

1. increase comfort for those who, like the technicians, must remain for several hours in the same position. The highly ergonomic stations decrease physical fatigue, thus ensuring maximum mental clarity and more efficient performance during the race;
2. eliminating the need to run back and forth from the trackside. Thanks to remote communication tools, tyre specialists and mechanics do not have to shuttle back and forth between the pit and the pit canopy to take orders to make a pit stop or change tires;
3. Ensure complete privacy. Concentrating strategy management in a single location inside the pit guarantees the highest level of confidentiality. No one can understand the strategies that the team is adopting. In addition to being an advantage against the opponents, it also allows the team to feel less pressure.

The telemetry stations already existing on the market were just a sort of office where you could install a PC, send a video output on a larger monitor, or make a conference.

So they were solutions that allowed to analyze data in the pre- and post-race. But they were not designed to work in real time on race strategies.

Race Case's solution, on the other hand, opened up a new possibility:

As a manufacturer focused on racing, we know that the construction of a new flight case must always meet precise logistical needs of the team.

In this case, speed in assembling and disassembling the equipment was critical.

Both on arrival at the circuit, before the race weekend, and at the end, when the team is faced with the task of disassembling and loading the trucks.

With a combination of top and front covers, the telemetry box made for Team Kessel can be assembled in less than 15 minutes.

The computer will probably take longer to load the data than the time it takes to set-up the entire system!

Thanks to the collaboration with a company specialized in audio and video systems, all the monitors are already connected through a system of extension cables.

In this way, the only operation to be done once in the box is to connect the PC using the special HDMI sockets that are an integral part of the box.

The composition of the box also allows you to carry inside specific compartments all the consumables.

As with all Race Case solutions, nothing is transported out of the crate.... Even printer paper, folding chairs, and tape!

The key factor we considered in this article was comfort.

Those who know the dynamics of an endurance race know that staying in the same position for several hours is not easy.

The uncomfortableness of a pit canopy location increases stress, making it very difficult to maintain the concentration and clarity needed to win a race.

Endurance races are won over long distances.

For this reason, Team Kessel's telemetry crate was equipped with 2 removable tops to provide enough legroom.

When the crate is opened, the two shelves are pulled out and placed horizontally, so as to create a space between the wall with the equipment and the technician.

In this way, people can work exactly as if they were sitting at a desk, with much greater comfort than with traditional pit canopies.

Special attention to the aesthetic side could not be missing, since the cash desk is located in a position visible to everyone: customers, sponsors, drivers, spectators.

The geometries must be clean and pleasing from a design point of view.

To avoid the tangle of cables that would make the whole thing awful to see and not at all practical to use, we worked on a refined system of hatches that conceals electrical outlets, USB cables, HDMI.

The end result is an impeccably clean aesthetic.

Special attention to the aesthetic side could not be missing, since the cash desk is located in a position visible to everyone: customers, sponsors, drivers, spectators.

The geometries must be clean and pleasing from a design point of view.

To avoid the tangle of cables that would make the whole thing awful to see and not at all practical to use, we worked on a refined system of hatches that conceals electrical outlets, USB cables, HDMI.

The end result is an impeccably clean aesthetic.