This summer I've been helping out a great racing team in the Ontario Formula Ford Championship - think open-wheel racing cars without the wings. I've always been a big racing fan, so it's been neat to see what it's like from somewhere other than the grandstands or in front of the television.
I try to help out with some of the more minor routine maintenance stuff: filling fuel, doing spot-checks, torque-ing wheels, etc. I was also brought in to do some data acquisition. A few of the cars on the team sport onboard data loggers connected to a handful of sensors: longitudinal and latitudinal accelerometers, thermometers, RPM pickups, etc. At the end of a run, with some fairly simple point-and-click software, you can hookup a laptop to the data logger via USB and download the contents of its memory.
I'll write more in-depth about this side of things some other time. But one of the more amusing things is that I do all of this data acquisition work on my MacBook. So when a spectator walks by, the look on his/her face is usually one that coincides with this thought: "wow that's neat, they've got a computer hooked up to the race car just like the big leagues". This is immediately followed a second later by a more puzzled look: "hmm, a Mac?"
No, the data logger company doesn't put out any Mac software and yes all of this stuff is proprietary and Windows-compatible only. But I've installed Parallels Desktop and run Windows XP in a virtualized environment on my MacBook. I was happy to find out that all the data logger USB drivers installed just fine and that everything else just worked! I'm the only Mac-using data acquisition person in the paddock. In fact, I'm probably one of only a handful anywhere period!
I'd say the only downside is handling my bright white MacBook after working on the car for a bit and having grease all over my hands!