At the beginning of this month I made the long trip to early winter Indianapolis (yes, it snowed) for the International Council for Motorsport Science (ICMS) Annual General Congress. This is the second time that I have attended this particular conference, the first time having been this time last year. It was good to be able to attend for a second consecutive year and good to catch up with colleagues and friends. 



As it was in 2016, the ICMS AGC was embedded within the much larger Performance Racing Industries (PRI) trade show, at which you can find any piece of equipment for your race car or team, from seat covers to O-rings to telemetry recorders and 3D printed aero winglets.

The speaker program for the two days of the ICMS congress was well thought out with some very interesting topics. Each of this year's presentations was recorded by the ICMS and will be released along with the slide sets over the coming months via the ICMS website, so keep an eye out for those if you want to hear those presentations for yourself.



I have put together three podcasts which summarise the content of those two days of talks. There was quite a lot to get through and I've had to split the Day 1 summary into two parts (Podcast 22 and 23) and Day 2 (Podcast 24), which will be released over the coming weeks.

Podcast 22 - ICMS AGC Day 1 Part 1 (below)
Podcast 23 - ICMS AGC Day 1 Part 2
Podcast 24 - ICMS AGC Day 2


Day 3 of the congress was occupied by the Race Track Safety Program (RTSP) which was split into morning presentations followed by afternoon practical workshops on hydraulic tool use, fire suppression, extrication and a rescue demonstration by the IndyCar Holmatro rescue team. The highlight of the RTSP was an interactive session with IndyCar driver Charlie Kimball and Asst. Prof David Ferguson who detailed the steps that they took to understand and get Charlie's diabetes under optimal control and prove that with diligent management, diabetes is a condition that a motorsport athlete can live with rather than be defined by. It didn't hurt that Charlie scored an Indianapolis podium finish either.

Podcast 22 - ICMS AGC Day 1 Part 1
 

(The intro music sample is "I am a scientist" by The Dandy Warhols - https://youtu.be/R7hjm-ODUTU)
 
 
ICMS Congress Day 1 Links
Note: I have no conflicts of interest to declare and receive no financial or career gain for any of the products mentioned or referenced in either the text or podcast of this post.