Soltic Africa takes on the Eldoret round of the KCB Kenya National Rally Championship
Eldoret town came alive this past weekend with the roaring sounds of supercharged engines as they checked in for the scrutineering stage of this year’s KCB eldoret rally. The 151km route of this round would take the drivers through some of the most scenic areas in Rift valley, Kipsaos, Flourspar, Nyaru and Kimwarer respectively. The drivers and crew were easy to discern but in the midst of all the flurry of activity, the Soltic Africa technical team was deeply engrossed making sure all our systems would work nominally. Our objective was simple, yet delicate, to track and monitor a select sample of the rally cars as well as offer additional emergency response to the teams.
The organisation of rallies at all levels – from the World Rally Championship to regional rally competitions – puts heavy emphasis on the safety of crews and spectators. As such, it is vital to have real time online tracking systems in place while monitoring them to improve and safeguard the lives of competing rally drivers, officials and spectators. GPS units installed in each rally car tasked to us automatically send the GPS coordinates of the vehicle along with other important data to our system’s server which relays that information to our forward control center, All those working in rally control are then able to monitor the vehicle’s progress and location through a common internet browser platform.
In rally sport, the security and health of the crew depend on the quick and instantaneous delivery of the message, so the data must be sent to rally control in real time. It was therefore crucial that our systems held up to the rigors of the wild outdoors of Rift Valley. The soltic GPS provides many different types of information to the rally control center including the actual position and speed of the car, condition of the vehicle and stopping & various alarms in case of an accident .
The live action on the other hand was just spectacular. The vehicles swerved, skid and spun as they weaved their way through the various stages, always under our keen observation. Some sections were treacherous with some cars even going off the track in what was perhaps the most dramatic action this leg has ever seen. The organizers and field observers were highly impressed with our GPS system, and the four outstanding reports and alerts that were issued in this rally were:
Soltic Forward Control Center monitoring the rally cars.
- Ignition alert: an alert when a lap is about to start.
- Accident alarm alert: an automatic alert in case of an accident.
- Geo-fencing/route alerts: shows the exact route taken by the drivers, including any illegal shortcuts they may have taken and alerts the control center on any violation.
- Work hours: Enables to check the exact time the ignition was on as well as the length of the period the vehicle’s engine has been running.
In subsequent rally events, we anticipate to have more rally cars monitored, deploy more safety measures, make improvements to our system and are presently working on having more response units and correspondents positioned along the circuit. One thing that’s certain is that the Soltic Africa tracking feature has a future in the field of rally monitoring. Since it has such small requirements for operating staff, our experience in the Eldoret rally has shown that this system can potentially be used all over the country to improve rally monitoring and operations.
