Ralf Mackel

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Ralf Mackel (born March 8, 1965 in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe ) is a motor sportsman who was blind from birth . It can only distinguish between light and dark and is based on hearing , i.e. H. after the echoes of the sounds of his racing car.

Career

After completing the school for the blind in Friedberg, Mackel attended business school and then completed his training as a data processing specialist / programmer in Heidelberg .

Racing

Even as a 10-year-old tunte Mackel mopeds and tested himself. In 1994 he began training as a racing driver. Mackel took part in the supporting program of the DTM and the IDM , where he carried out race taxi rides. In a Formula Super Vee car, he reached 272 km / h on the straight. On April 17, 2005, Ralf Mackel completed a lap of the Hockenheimring in around 3 minutes in a Porsche 911 Carrera as part of the DTM 2005 kick-off event . Since the beginning of 2009 there has been a cooperation between Ralf Mackel and Kawasaki Germany.

Learning the racetrack

Ralf Mackel first has an idea of ​​the route in his head. To do this, he first drives the specially marked route several times with his fingers on a map. Then he completes a few laps as a passenger with the window 15 cm open to get to know the route. Mackel pays attention to the reverberation of various objects, such as grandstands, pit walls, etc., but also to the noise of the condition of the road surface, bumps, etc. In order to perceive the reverberation acoustically, he uses a racing helmet with an adapted interior. In order to minimize wind noise as much as possible, the racing helmet has a spoiler to suppress wind turbulence. Mackel uses the principle of active echolocation , the sound source of which in this special individual case is the engine noise of his own vehicle. In connection with a very strong sense of time, all this information forms the picture of the route in Mackel's head.

"There are new concrete walls, I heard that."

- Ralf Mackel

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christopher Wittich: Blinder Rennfahrer - Video about Ralf Mackel. (No longer available online.) Good evening, RTL-Hessen, September 7, 2009, archived from the original on October 24, 2013 ; Retrieved January 6, 2009 .
  2. ↑ Blind racing driver drives by hearing and memory , Focus , August 1, 2009
  3. ↑ Hockenheim flying blind  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.dtm.com
  4. ↑ a b Article in Porsche employee newspaper 4/2005
  5. ↑ Cooperation with Kawasaki ( Memento from May 11, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ Jörn Perske: Gives rubber according to hearing and memory , Offenbach-Post , August 7, 2009
  7. ↑ Orientation through echo location s. a. "seeing different"
personal data
SURNAME Mackel, Ralf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German racing driver
DATE OF BIRTH March 8, 1965
PLACE OF BIRTH Bad Homburg vor der Höhe , Germany