Southern California

Sam Schmidt was in the cockpit of a black Corvette C7 Stingray as the car zipped across the pavement of a simulated road course while practicing for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach this weekend.

A warm wind was blowing across the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana as Schmidt accelerated out of a curve, speeding past a small gathering of onlookers, then receding into the distance.

The real action, however, was happening inside the car, well out of view to fans enamored with speed and the allure of his highly modified Corvette.

• Video: Quadriplegic man is back in the driver seat

Schmidt, a quadriplegic who is unable to use his hands and feet to control the gas and brake pedals, was testing the latest evolution of a system that enables him to control the Corvette solely by head movements and his own breath.

“Frankly, after being injured 15 years ago, I never had any realistic hope of driving a car again,” said Schmidt, who survived a racing accident in early 2000. “At the base, core level, it’s great to you know, sort of do something everybody takes for granted.”

The Corvette houses a set of infrared cameras arrayed inside the cockpit that have been calibrated to track Schmidt’s head movements, so when he looks at a spot in the road, the car turns in that direction. The car increases speed when Schmidt blows into a specialized straw and slows down when he inhales.

“It’s weird. You turn and it goes,” said Schmidt, who grew up in Sylmar and now lives in Henderson, Nev. “Probably the most challenging thing is the mental focus. You can’t drift around mentally. You’ve got to hope there aren’t a lot of bikinis in the grandstand. That could be tragic.”

Arrow Electronics, a Fortune 500 company based in Centennial, Colo., is leading development of the system, called SAM for semi-autonomous motorcar. Freescale Semiconductor, an Austin company, is also playing a major role in the project.

The SAM Car project’s nontechnical director, Joe Verrengia of Arrow, said engineers have developed the system by integrating common components. Schmidt is scheduled to demonstrate the current version of the system by driving a Sunday morning lap around the Long Beach Grand Prix course.

“This is a real significant milestone for us,” Verrengia said.

The Way to the Starting Line

Schmidt’s name is likely known to people who follow IndyCar racing as a former driver and current racing team co-owner. Born in 1964, he grew up a racing fan who frequently attended the Long Beach Grand Prix and was participating in motocross events when he was as young as 5.

But Schmidt’s youthful aspirations to a driving career were disrupted at the age of 10 when his father, who competed as a drag racer, was injured. Schmidt instead took a more conventional life path, earning an MBA at Pepperdine University and embarking on a business career before being drawn back to racing after a visit to Willow Springs International Raceway in Rosamond, near Edwards Air Force Base.

“It was 1991 and my uncle was racing in Southern California, and I went out to watch and I kind of got hooked again,” he said.

He bought a Renault Sport and entered Sports Car Club of America races in 1992 and drove open-wheel cars in the Formula Continental class the following year. He continued to advance and joined the Indy Racing League in 1997, which afforded him a chance to compete in his first Indianapolis 500.

“I really want to continue to do this and to do it at a more magnified level,” he told the Los Angeles Daily News in 1997. “And I really want to win the Indianapolis 500.”

Schmidt took 34th place in that race. The next year, he finished in 26th place in the Indianapolis 500 and claimed 30th place at the race in 1999.

The following year, on Jan. 6, 2000, Schmidt’s racing career seemingly came to an end at Walt Disney World Speedway in Florida. He crashed into a wall during a practice race and was flown from the track to a hospital, having suffered a major spinal cord injury.

In spite of being diagnosed as quadriplegic, Schmidt started his own racing company, now called Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, a little more than a year after his injury. In 2013 he got the phone call that led to him getting back in the car.

“Sam is a race car driver,” said Arrow Electronics engineer Will Pickard. “He never stopped being one, he just didn’t have a car to drive.”

All systems go

Schmidt’s first time testing the car on a track came in April 2014. Weeks later, he was back at Indianapolis Speedway, reaching a speed of 107 miles per hour on the oval track. The SAM Car’s systems, however, had been upgraded to prepare for the twists and turns of the Long Beach course.

“This is the first time that we have done a road course,” Verrengia said. “It’s much more challenging and it requires a significant modifications.”

The current version of the steering system employs a set of four infrared cameras mounted near the top of the windshield. The driver wears a baseball cap with nine spherical reflective markers that look like pingpong balls attached to a framework that fits over the cap.

As the driver turns his head toward either shoulder, the cameras track the movement of the reflective surfaces and send that information to the car’s main computer, stored in its trunk, that performs calculations that determine how the driver’s movements control the steering wheel.

The car has new cameras for the Long Beach race that are designed to record actions within a wider field of vision in order to give Schmidt more control of his turns.

The breath control system is another new addition to the car. At Indianapolis, Schmidt controlled his acceleration using a system that added 10 miles per hour to his speed every time he tilted his head backward, but that wouldn’t work for the Long Beach course with its 11 turns.

Hence the addition of what engineers at the speedway referred to as “sip and puff” technology: “sip” to slow down, “puff” to go faster.

Similar technology is already used to help people living with serious injuries or disabilities control wheelchairs like the one employed by Russel Burke, 38, who was at the Fontana track Wednesday to watch Schmidt’s practice. The Simi Valley resident was hurt two years ago after a diving accident at Lake Havasu.

Burke said he could likely could learn to drive with the kind of systems employed by the SAM car, having already learned to use his breath to maneuver his wheelchair.

“You get used to it pretty quick,” he said. “I bet you I could do it pretty easily.”

Verrengia and Pickard essentially described the SAM Car as a demonstration project to show the potential to find new uses for existing technology to improve the way people interact with machines.

“The control systems we develop with tracking head movements, with the ‘sip and puff’ tubes, those can be extrapolated to any type of human-to-machine interface,” Pickard said. “It can be everything from working a computer, running an oil rig, running a tractor. Sam’s already talked about looking at these various applications as assistive technologies for other users with quadriplegia or limited mobility.”

Schmidt and his SAM Car will drive the Long Beach Grand Prix course at 11:19 a.m. Sunday. The car will also be on display during race weekend.

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WANT TO GO?

The Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach takes place today through Sunday.

Number of races: 7

Length of the course: 1.9 miles

Number of turns: 11

On TV: Watch the Verizon IndyCar Series race at 1 p.m. on NBCSN.

MIRA LOMA >> A fiery crash, apparently caused by a speeding truck, snarled traffic on the 15 Freeway in Eastvaleon Saturday, CHP officers said.

The crash was reported at 11:15 a.m. on the south side of the 15, approaching the 60 Freeway interchange.

A U-Haul truck with a trailer sideswiped a car and then went into the center median off the southbound lanes of the 15, the California Highway Patrol website said.

The truck was fully engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived, but everyone inside was able to get out without injury.

The fire didn’t spread beyond the truck and nobody was injured, a Riverside County Fire Department report said.

Traffic was backed up and railroad service was stopped in the area because the crash happened near the tracks.

The families of an engaged couple who were killed in the fiery crash of a bus carrying dozens of Los Angeles-area high school students to Humboldt State University for a campus tour unveiled a plaque Friday in conjunction with the one-year anniversary of the accident.

Michael Myvett and Mattison Haywood were chaperones aboard the bus that had 44 students aboard, along with one other chaperone and the driver.

The bus was being driven north on Interstate 5 in Orland on April 10, 2014, when it was struck by a southbound FedEx big rig whose driver veered off the freeway and crossed a lengthy grass median. The truck struck a Nissan Altima before plowing into the tour bus, which burst into flames.

Ten people died, including the drivers of both vehicles and five students.

The families of Myvett and Haywood unveiled a plaque honoring all of the crash victims during a news conference at Union Station’s Patsaouras Transit Plaza.

“We have had a year of tears, now we need to remember their joy,” said Debra Loyd, who raised Myvett.

The families have asked the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to install the plaque at the bus plaza. They also plan to make duplicate plaques available to each of the high schools that had a student who died in the crash, along with the city of Orland and Humboldt State University, where Myvett earned undergraduate and master’s degrees.

Myvett, who was a therapist for autistic children, and Haywood got engaged in Paris in December 2013.

The other victims of the crash were:

• Denise Gomez and Ismael Jimenez, the reigning homecoming queen and king at Animo Charter High School in Inglewood;

• Jennifer Bonilla, an honor student at Los Angeles Dorsey High School who recently had won a college scholarship and was considered a campus leader by school administrators;

• Adrian Castro, a popular El Monte High School football player who fellow students referred to as a positive role model;

• Marisa Serrato, a church-going student at Norte Vista High School in Riverside, and whose identical twin, Marisol, made the trip on a different bus and was not injured;

• bus driver Talalelei Lealao-Taiao;

• chaperone Arthur Arzola, 26, of Rancho Cucamonga, who was a college recruiter helping to lead the excursion to Humboldt State; and

• FedEx truck driver Tim Evans, 32, a lifelong resident of the Sacramento area who had married his high school sweetheart, fathered two daughters and helped coach their soccer and softball teams.

DIAMOND BAR – An Orange County Sheriff’s Department motorcycle deputy was injured today in a crash in Diamond Bar, authorities said.

The crash occurred about 5:50 a.m. on the southbound Orange (57) Freeway near Diamond Bar Boulevard, the California Highway Patrol reported.

The deputy was taken to a hospital for treatment of injuries that were not believed life-threatening, said Orange County sheriff’s Lt. Jeff Hallock. Three southbound freeway lanes were blocked while an investigation was conducted into the circumstances of the crash.

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. >> A private plane returning from the NCAA basketball tournament in Indianapolis crashed in a central Illinois field on Tuesday, killing all seven people on board, including Illinois State University’s associate head basketball coach and a deputy athletics director.

Rescue personnel found no survivors at the site near the city of Bloomington, and a coroner pronounced the seven occupants dead, McLean County Sheriff Jon Sandage said at a news conference.

The journey to Monday night’s championship game began with a phone call. Scott Bittner, a 42-year-old business owner, got a call from a friend asking if he wanted to go to the game.

“He said he had an extra ticket and asked him to go,” said Terry Wertz, who worked alongside Bittner at a meat processing plant. Wertz said that when Bittner hung up the phone he was “really excited.”

They took off for the game in a plane that Bittner used regularly for business trips. It was not clear exactly how they were connected with the others on board, but local broadcasters talked about the group as if many of them were well acquainted with one another. Bittner was one of the seven killed.

Authorities were withholding official identification of victims pending notification of family.

But Illinois State University President Larry Dietz confirmed in an email to students, faculty and staff that associate head basketball coach Torrey Ward and Aaron Leetch, the athletic department’s deputy director for external relations, were killed in the early-morning crash. The email was released to media.

“Words cannot fully express the grief that is felt in the wake of such a tragedy,” Dietz wrote, adding that both men were well-respected and much-loved in the athletics department. “We move between shock and profound sadness.”

Several players and staff carried through with an optional practice Tuesday afternoon at Redbird Arena. A spokesman said they would not make players or coaches available for comment.

The Cessna 414 twin-engine aircraft took off from Indianapolis and crashed just short of the Central Illinois Regional Airport in Bloomington after midnight, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

The National Transportation Safety Board was investigating, but there was no initial word on the cause of the crash. News photos from near the scene showed dense fog.

The airport was open and all systems, including its runway lighting, were functioning, though the tower had closed several hours earlier and handed responsibility to an air traffic control facility in Peoria.

“That is not an anomaly; that’s a very common thing at airports across the country,” airport Director Carl Olson told reporters at the news conference.

Radar contact was lost moments before the crash and a search was launched when the pilot failed to close out his flight plan. It took about three hours to find the wreckage.

Officials said they would release more details by late afternoon.

Jason Jones, a former basketball and baseball player for Illinois Wesleyan University who worked at Wells Fargo Advisors, also died, said his wife, Lyndsey Jones.

“He loved his children and his family more than anything in the world, wonderful man. That’s really all I can say right now,” she said.

The Associated Press was not able to confirm the identities of the other three people on board.

Bittner’s father-in-law, Scott Barrows, said he had a regular and experienced pilot for the 10-seater aircraft.

“(They) went to the NCAA game last night and they were flying back and I guess the weather was bad in central Illinois. It was foggy,” Barrows told the Chicago Tribune. “They were supposed to land around midnight. My daughter was called at 4 a.m. … It has been confirmed they are dead.”

A woman who answered a phone listing for Scott Bittner said she was a family friend and refused to comment beyond asking for privacy.

Bittner lived with his wife and two children in Towanda, a small village just outside Bloomington, his co-worker Wertz told the AP. He owned a meat processing plant in Eureka, Illinois, carrying on the family’s line of work after his dad established another plant in the small city of Chenoa, where Bittner grew up.

“He always told me that he wasn’t my boss, that I didn’t work for him, I worked with him,” said Wertz, who has worked at Bittner’s Meat Co. for 15 years.

“He was awful good to me and my family,” Wertz said through tears. “If I needed anything, he’d do anything for you.”

The plant butchers livestock, including beef, pork, lambs and goats.

Bittner had traveled to Indianapolis for the NCAA tournament using his dad’s plane, which he primarily used for business trips, Wertz said.

The aircraft was registered to Make it Happen Aviation LLC of Towanda, Illinois.

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Keyser reported from Chicago. Associated Press writer Don Babwin contributed to this report from Chicago.

A Chino police officer was slightly injured in a crash during a pursuit with a fleeing vehicle Tuesday morning.

A 43-year-old Chino woman was arrested in connection to the chase.

Just after 1:30 a.m., officers tried to pull over a car for vehicle code violations in the northwest portion of the city, according to Monica Gutierrez, spokeswoman for Chino.

The driver, later identified as Jacqueline Huey, led officers on a chase into Ontario, Gutierrez said.

During the pursuit, a Chino police officer was involved in a collision at the intersection of Cedar and Euclid avenues, she said. He was slighlty injured in the crash.

The pursuit was discontinued, and Ontario police officers were called to help find the fleeing vehicle.

Ontario police officers later found the vehicle Huey was allegedly driving abandoned near the intersection of Francis and Boulder avenues, she said.

Through an investigation, Chino officers went to a home in the 5400 block of Choctaw in Chino and found Huey inside. She was subsequently arrested on suspicion of evading officers and was booked at the West Valley Detention Center and is being held in lieu $100,000 bail.

POMONA >> A Pomona couple was arrested following a police pursuit and crash that injured an innocent driver.

David Macias, 42, and Jocelyn Sanchez, 23, both of Pomona, were booked into the Pomona Jail Thursday afternoon, according to a police statement.

Shortly before 5 p.m., officers from Pomona Police Department’s Major Crimes Task Force noticed a vehicle near White Avenue and 9th Street had committed at least two traffic violations, officials said. When officers tried to stop the vehicle, the driver sped off.

During the pursuit, the front passenger, later identified as Sanchez, jumped out of the moving vehicle. A short time after sheleft the vehicle, the driver, Macias, crashed into a vehicle at the intersection of Park Avenue and 11th Street. Macias and the other motorist suffered minor injuries, police officials said.

Macias was arrested and police found he was in possession of a .38 special handgun and drugs. Sanchez was also apprehended and investigators learned she was a parolee at large.

ANAHEIM, Calif. — L.A. Dodgers right fielder Yasiel Puig was removed from a spring training game Thursday night against the Angels as a precaution following a violent collision with second baseman Howie Kendrick.

The play occurred in the fifth inning while Puig and his new teammate were chasing a shallow fly by Mike Trout that fell for a leadoff triple.

• PHOTOS: Tout homers, Puig leave game, Kendrick returns as Angels win

Kendrick, who spent his first nine big league seasons playing second base for the Angels before they traded him to the Dodgers in December, peeled off when he heard Puig call for the ball at the last instant — but could not avoid hitting him.

“There hasn’t been any trouble out there all spring. It was just one of those things,” Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said. “I don’t know if Yasiel didn’t think he could call it early enough. I mean, you can’t call for it until you know you’ve got it, so everybody keeps coming until the end. And obviously with him calling it late, Howie’s going to keep going and he’s going to have trouble stopping.”

Puig went down and was tended to by a trainer before walking off the field under his own power.

“I’m glad everybody’s OK. That’s the main thing,” Mattingly said. “It looked like Howie got him in the neck or the throat with his shoulder. Howie didn’t hear anything until the last second. The infielder’s going to keep going until he hears something, and that’s basically what Howie did. That’s when it gets dangerous.”

Puig was replaced in right field by Chris Heisey. Trout scored moments later on Albert Pujols’ sacrifice fly, which gave the Angels a two-run lead in their 3-2 victory.

ONTARIO >> Traffic was backed up for about seven miles following a multi-vehicle crash that also involved a tractor trailer tossed debris across all lanes of the westbound 10 Freeway near Etiwanda Avenue early this morning.

Traffic was reportedly backed up to Bloomington. A SigAlert was issued as crews worked to clear the scene and the lanes of traffic.

The crash was reported just before 6 a.m., according to California Highway Patrol incident logs.

At least three vehicles, including the tractor trailer were involved, and the crash initially blocked all lanes due to debris being strewn across the freeway, according to CHP logs.