Shannon Davis and his team at Davis Technologies remain committed as ever to the technology of traction control and wheel speed management — the devices the put the Davis name on the map in drag racing — but the ingenuitive North Carolinian has in recent months been focusing on ways to utilize the technology at his disposal to improve safety in the sport in conjunction with performance.

How so, you might ask?

At least year’s PRI Show, Davis revealed the all-new Vehicle Position Sensor, a high-speed, incredibly accurate device with an internal gyroscope and accelerometer capable of sensing wheelstands; in conjunction with the Profiler wheel speed management device, the VPS can be programmed to pull timing, boost, or other factors to keep the nose of race cars on the ground and avoid catastrophic crashes. As Davis shared, the VPS has been used en masse in the Radial vs The World class, were power wheelstands are common and more than a few wheelstand-aided crashes have occurred in recent years.

Now, Davis is working to expand on the capabilities of the VPS with a highly responsive and accurate G-meter inside the Profiler so that the tuner can see whether the car lost G reading and then hit the Profiler, or vice versa, adding yet another element to a tuners’ arsenal. “If it’s hit the Profiler and then loses G, then it was probably too low of a profile, but if it’s the other way around, then the Profiler probably saved your run, and it helps you determine where that profile needs to be.”

The third phase, as Davis shared with us, is a Vehicle Position Sensor safety device, that will sense excessive pitch, yaw, roll, or even a side impact. This functionality, which will come in a device he plans to sell at a reasonable and affordable price to make it available to all racers, was inspired by Davis’ belief that most tragic accidents could be easily prevented with the use of technology.

“I’ve moved two degrees one direction and haven’t corrected yet, and my prerogative isn’t to cross the centerline — from that, I can program some safety corrections, whether that’s bringing in a rev limit, dropping the parachute, shutting the engine off. The driver can set up the limits and the reactions. So whether the driver has overdriven the car, or maybe he’s knocked out, what’s to keep the car from turning 180 degrees back to the starting line with his foot on the throttle.”

The driver can set the limit where they hit the wall, because they feel that they an drive better than this device, but if i do hit the wall and it senses a slight impact, then I’m in trouble. So, from there, they can have these reactions.”

The device will use accelerometers, gyros, and possibly a magnetometer for some features, and through algebraic calculations we won’t pretend to understand, will measure deviations going down the racetrack, calculating angles and rates of acceleration to determine how far out of the groove from center or how sideways the car is to plan its reactions.