Stu Kelly Is Betting That Your GoPro Is Already Your Best Data Logger
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No additional equipment or licenses. Just the camera you already mount every session.
Every GoPro you've ever strapped to a roll bar has been quietly logging GPS data the whole time. Stu Kelly noticed, and instead of letting that metadata rot in a video file, he built something out of it.
The project, currently going by GarageData for beta (a placeholder name that'll change before public launch) started as a side experiment with his girlfriend Emily who works with data and statistics professionally. She figured out how to pull the GPS data out of GoPro footage and overlay it onto a track map. Stu took that and built it into a full analysis tool: import a GoPro clip, and the software extracts the embedded GPS data on its own, plots the driving line over satellite imagery, and colors it by speed, nothing else required to get started.
"You can look at it and actually see where your lines are on the track, and it's just cool data to look at, to compare against yourself and your friends to just try and be better and be a better driver as well."
What's actually in the current build goes well past a simple overlay. Stu's software auto-detects laps and runs using start/end gates, splices one long recording into individual virtual laps without creating separate files, and lets a driver stack up to four runs at once with synchronized video, GPS position, and speed data all moving together. Scrub the comparison timeline and every window updates in lockstep: footage, track position, speed graph. It handles driver-to-driver comparisons the same way, and specifically supports lead-versus-chase analysis for tandem footage, laying out exactly where two cars were positioned relative to each other through a run. There's a purpose-built drift track editor with outer zones, inner clips, and deceleration zones mapped directly onto the GPS data alongside a more traditional sector based editor for circuit and autocross use, and the option to align a custom course image when satellite imagery isn't good enough.
The comparison that's going to come up immediately is RaceDataLabs' UDSM, the system most guys know by its nickname, Wally. UDSM has become the standard at Formula Drift but Stu says he isn't trying to replace it. Stu is firmly aiming at the gap underneath it: drivers who want real line and speed comparison without buying into a dedicated sensor setup or software built around a data engineer's workflow. Stu's pitch is accessibility over depth, the camera already mounted in the car is the entire hardware requirement to get started.
"A lot of the really expensive, in-depth analysis software is just way over the top for stuff we don't really care about, and it's overly complicated for most people to look at. So I tried to do a slightly simpler version that's just easy for us to look at for a second and be like, oh, this is where my line was on this lap."
Stu is explicit about keeping the tool's ambitions in check, too. This isn't being sold as a way to gain a competitive edge, just a way to actually see what you're doing out there instead of guessing from memory.
"I don't want people to think this is so serious, and it's not like a tool to make you better at competing or anything. Literally, we all use GoPros, and it's just a cool way to visualize that data."
That's where the current build stops, and where the roadmap picks up. The next iteration is aimed squarely at providing even more data to the driver integrating ECU data and automatically syncing between GoPro video and the matching ECU log so video, GPS, and vehicle telemetry land in one timeline together.
The software is browser-based, built in HTML and JavaScript, with a standalone Windows build and a Mac version both in testing, all of it still in active development. A public beta is targeted for this fall or winter with a permanent name to follow before a full release. Follow @stukellymotorsports on Instagram for updates.
