Abarth team to debut revolutionary Bosch collision avoidance system

Fiat Australia’s tilt at the Bathurst 12 Hour this coming weekend will debut new safety technology Down Under. The Abarth pocket rockets will feature a new collision avoidance system aimed at making multi-class endurance racing safer.

For generations the biggest issue surrounding endurance racing has been one of safety. Inevitably, major events such as Le Mans or the Nurburgring 24 Hours support a clogged entry list, and the speed differential between the fastest of outright cars and those in lower categories can create situations where three figure closing speeds are the norm.

The upcoming Bathurst 12 Hour has faced the same problem in recent years — and across the top of The Mountain, there no room for the quicker cars to slide by safely if traffic doesn’t want to play ball.

Enter the Bosch Collision Avoidance System – Motorsport (CAS-M), which is set to debut in Australia aboard the Fiat Abarth 695 Assetto Corse that will be raced in part by motoring.com.au’s Editor in Chief, Mike Sinclair.

“The Bosch system is quite revolutionary,” says Alan Heaphy, whose Performance Parts & Engineering company has prepared the Abarths at Bathurst.

“We are delighted to be the first team in Australia to trial the system. We see it as not only helping the faster cars, but also helping our guys drive their own race without having to constantly drive on the mirrors. It’s safer for everyone.”

Initial testing of the Bosch system was carried out on Corvette Racing’s C6.Rs in the American Le Mans Series, where Audi and Porsche Sports Prototypes regularly loom large. For the diminutive Fiats — at 1.4 litres, they run the smallest engine in the field — it makes sense, especially when you consider the faster Ferraris, Mercedes and Audis are capable of lapping faster than a V8 Supercar around Bathurst.

On the surface, the Bosch CAS-M appears simple; so simple, you wonder why such technology wasn’t made endurance race mandatory years ago.

There’s a large cockpit-mounted screen (centrally in the Corvettes; “More central to the driver’s vision, so they don’t take their eyes off the road” in the Abarths). Out back, there’s a high-resolution camera and rear-facing radar.

The cockpit screen contains a distance scale, but the tech runs far deeper than that. Coloured arrows appear above closing traffic, graduating through orange and red (with rifle-style crosshairs appearing if things get a little close for comfort) before a large horizontal flashing arrow 'points’ in the direction of the pass.

Impressively, the system can pick closing speed several cars deep, so if a front-runner is lapping a gaggle of smaller cars and is, for example, third in the queue, CAS-M can detect this and ‘separate’ the quickest approaching car from the others.

CAS-M also works in adverse weather and light conditions (even with headlight glare); both vital when considering the possibilities of a 12 Hour Bathurst odyssey.

The 2014 Bathurst 12 Hour takes place this Sunday (February 9). motoring.com.au coverage of the event, from within the Fiat Australia Abarth Racing team kicks off later this week.

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