How Motor Racing Professionals Deal With Glare

Motorsports professionals need to ensure that they can keep an eye on the track all the time and concentrate. However, that can be hard when the sun is glaring down on them, preventing them from seeing where they’re going.

There have been all sorts of racing incidents and accidents caused by the sun. Sometimes, it just throws drivers off and they can’t recover.

Fortunately, there are ways to deal with these issues, which is what we discuss in this post. We look at how motor racing professionals deal with glare and what lessons, if any, you can learn from them.

Wearing Polarized Visors

One of the best ways to deal with glare for many racing professionals is to use polarized glasses. These filter out horizontal light waves, improving contrast and clarity for racing drivers.

What’s nice about these is that they provide the most help at dawn and dusk, when glare is often at its worst. When the sun is over heat, drivers usually report good visibility, but when it is coming in from a low angle, that’s when it worries a lot of drivers and makes it harder for them to see where they’re going.

Using Tinting

Another tactic is to tint windows or even use strips applied to the visor. The idea here is to block out the dazzling elements and simply allow the useful light to enter the cockpit.

Whether this strategy works depends on the type of vehicle. Obviously, most Formula cars don’t have windows. However, it could come in handy for touring cars or those taking part in Le Mans.

Using Anti-Relfective Coating

Another very common tactic these days is to use anti-reflective coatings on various vehicle surfaces and track environments. These prevent the sun’s rays from bouncing up as strongly, reducing mirror-like effects.

This technology is particularly helpful when trying to block the sun’s rays from bouncing off visors and helmets and onto other drivers. Usually, most racers report that they make their vision so much clearer and that they’re able to focus more on the race.

Adjusting Track Positioning

More advanced drivers will sometimes adjust their track positioning if they think the glare is preventing them from going as fast as they could. These changes are helpful because they improve situational awareness and allow drivers to get a better sense of their surroundings, especially when performing an overtaking maneuver.

Advanced Cockpit Design

Finally, you sometimes see attempts to reduce glare in motor racing in cockpit design. The idea is to change the organization of the cockpit to better reflect track and surface conditions, and to protect drivers from glare that could distract them from the race.

This approach is perhaps the best because it builds anti-glare features into the design itself, instead of dealing with them as an afterthought. Many in the motor racing industry like this approach, which is why it is becoming so popular and more common than ever before.

So there you have it; some of the ways motor racing pros are reducing glare.