By Mary L. Grady

At average speeds in excess of 200 miles per hour, a professional racecar driver knows there is only a fraction of a second between winning and losing; between slamming into the wall or being crushed by the impact of another caged metal rocket just inches away.

At high speeds, the split-second it takes to look away and check a gauge, can be deadly.

It hasn’t been that long since Island resident and professional racecar driver Dominic Dobson drove a Porsche 962 at a peak 242 mph during the 24-hour Le Mans endurance race. Named Rookie of the Year in 1986, Dobson, now 47, raced at the Indianapolis 500 for seven years in a row, from 1988 through 1994, with average speeds reaching 225 mph.

He knows what it is like to hit the wall at 200 mph — he has a long screw in his ankle to prove it — and has had to bail out of a car in flames.

Dobson has set out to create a way that drivers can keep up-to-the-second on key pieces of information — speed, gear and engine performance measured in rpm — without taking their eyes off the road.

He and a small team of high-tech optical, software and electrical engineers at his firm, Motion Research, have come up with a device called “SportVue.” The device clips on to a helmet and displays three key pieces of data inside a driver’s visor just above line of sight through a wireless connection to the engine. This first commercially available model is for motorcycles.

Often referred to as a heads-up display, the concept is similar to what military pilots have had for years. In 1994, Dobson tested an early version driving in the Indy 500.

The advantage of the system is the ability to see key information in front of you without taking even a nano-second to glance down and away from the road.

Real-time tasks like driving involve frequent and unpredictable changes in the environment, and therefore require people to frequently shift their attention and continually update their knowledge of the driving situation.

This ability is called situational awareness (SA) by researchers who study how humans perform tasks such as driving or flying in a rapidly changing environment.

As a military pilot must do, a driver of a motorcycle or a high performance racecar must remain aware of what is happening around them at all times.

After years on the track, Dobson knows how important it is.

Dobson grew up on Seattle’s Capitol Hill. At the age of 8, he had a Go-Kart that he would drive up and down the alley behind their house on 20th Avenue East.

His father worked at Seattle International Raceway (SIR), then known as Pacific Raceway, in the 1960s. On race day the family often went along. While his younger brother developed a penchant for working on the cars, Dobson found himself more often behind the wheel. He began competing in kart races in Spanaway and in Thrashers Corner.

The enterprise was not just a lark. His father made him responsible for maintaining his own machine. He was able to indulge himself, Dobson said, because he had two paper routes.

Dobson went on to make auto racing his career. He became a racing instructor. By 1983, he was driving Formula One cars, then moved on to the more prestigious and high stakes Indy cars in 1985. He has raced on the CART Circuit. He competed in the Le Mans and Daytona endurance races, which last for 24 hours, and has burned up the tracks at Sears Point and Sebring. In 1996, he drove the tour for the Chrysler Dodge Stratus car roll-out.

He now drives in vintage racecar events, racing for charitable causes such as uncompensated care at Seattle’s Children’s Hospital.

“What I like most about car racing is that it requires and demands focus,” he said. “The penalties are quite severe but the rewards are many.”

Making things tricky for the fledgling company, the press picked up on the new device last year before they were ready. Stories in the New York Times and the Boston Globe caused a flood of inquiries. The device has also been featured in Popular Science and Popular Mechanics. But they are now solidly on the market with a device for sale at $329 through their Web site, www.motionresearch.com and at Amazon.com . On its Web site, the company encourages comments and input from users to fine-tune the device.

The entrepreneurs at Motion Research are hoping to expand the amount of data displayed and applications. They are working on a version for cyclists, which may include data on heart rate and pedal cadence. Other uses are on the development boards.

Dobson has lived on the Island for several years now. He and his wife, Kristen, have two children: daughter Kaleigh, 8, and son Aidan, who is 5. Kaleigh seems to have a knack for racing and has her own mini Go-kart, while Aidan seems to be more conservative and mechanically minded, Dobson explained.

He said he does not make Kaleigh race her kart. “It is her choice. She has to want to do it.”

Now mostly driving a mini-van with the logo of his new company on the side, Dobson is content to keep within the speed limit. But there is a shiny red Suzuki “company motorcycle,” that the device must be tested on now and then.

Duty calls.