Motorsport UK mandates Impact Data Recorders in top-tier racing championships

Motorsport UK has mandated that Impact Data Recorders are fitted to all cars competing in British and junior racing championships with immediate effect and is evaluating a wider rollout.

The devices, which weigh only 12 grams, measure the gravitational impact of crashes and secondary impacts and show how much the car has moved forwards, sideways and upwards in an accident.

Unlike far more expensive Accident Data Recorders, Impact Data Recorders do not require specialist operators to download the data.

Instead, they can be easily installed into a car with the data accessible on a phone app via a QR code.

The devices cost £50 and are manufactured by Impact Detect, part of the Aim Technologies Group, but the governing body says the price will reduce when it is able to order them in larger quantities.

The IDRs have been trialled in the British Touring Car Championship and other categories in recent years and the data they gather brings many benefits.

“It has actually led to medical examinations when we’ve realised cars have been in far bigger impacts than we’ve first anticipated,” Motorsport UK sport and safety director John Ryan told Autosport of the trials.

“Visually, it may not seem so big but, when you realise you’ve gone beyond a certain threshold, and when you go beyond 20g in a crash, it’s becoming very significant. And you then have to start looking at whether there’s potential concussion issues.”

Although they are just for the British and top-tier national championships at present, with around 350 devices set to be fitted to cars within the next “two to three weeks”, Ryan explained that a wider rollout is likely for 2026.

“It’s part of our strategy to look and see where we should incorporate it as a mandatory part of the regulations for some of the higher-speed disciplines, which includes circuit racing, stage rallying, rallycross, karting and hillclimbs,” he said.

“All those events where you have to have crash helmets and FHRs, we should be looking to use this device.

“That will help us look at accident trends which lead on to adjusting venues potentially if we find there’s certain blackspots at venues where people are coming off on a regular basis to make sure the barriers are doing what they’re supposed to do.”

Ryan said it is possible the IDRs won’t be made mandatory but instead recommended for particular disciplines.

“I hope and anticipate many clubs will look at it and say, ‘We will put it in whatever happens, even if Motorsport UK don’t mandate it, we will make it a feature in our regulations because it’s good safety management, good data information,'” he added.

Ryan suggested one of the other potential benefits of widespread use of the devices concerns insurance payments.

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Photo by: JEP

“On the grand scheme of it, our biggest overhead as a governing body is our insurance bill,” he said.

“We work very hard and closely with our insurers to try to manage the risk of our sport to keep the insurance prices down.

“It’s always difficult to say we will reduce the cost because we know what insurance is like, but if you can maintain the cost or keep the increase to a minimum, like RPI, you’re doing well.

“That’s one of the targets with any of these sort of items – if we’ve got more real data and we can actually demonstrate good safety management, it can help in the long-term and people can actually make a saving.”