Open Road Ace: GPS Rally Timer

Open Road Ace is the pacing app for open-road racing — Big Bend Open Road Race, Silver State Classic, Sandhills Open Road, and the rest of the calendar. It tells you, in real time, exactly how to drive the course to hit your target class speed within a fraction of a second.

THE RABBIT TELLS YOU WHERE TO BE

At the start of your race, a virtual rabbit sets off down the polyline at your class target speed. Your job is simple: keep the rabbit close. The app shows you, in feet, exactly how far ahead or behind you are at every moment. Match the rabbit and you'll cross the finish gate at your perfect time.

WIN ON TIME, NOT SPEED

Open road racing isn't about the highest top end — it's about hitting an average. A 100 mph class is won by the racer who covers the course in 100.000 mph average, not the one who runs it the fastest. ORA does the math so you can focus on driving.

CM-LEVEL RTK PRECISION (NEW)

Open Road Ace now supports ArduSimple RTK — the ArduSimple simpleRTK2B (u-blox ZED-F9P) over the BT+BLE Bridge. L1/L2 multiband, NTRIP corrections handled in-app, with the F9P consuming raw RTCM3 or SPARTN bytes from any standard caster (PointPerfect Flex, regional bases, etc.). Result: ±0.02–0.5 m horizontal position, ~10 Hz update rate, finish-gate timing accurate to single-digit milliseconds. The entire RTK rig is under $500 — an order of magnitude cheaper than the survey-grade rovers most racers have been forced to use.

GPS-PRECISION FINISH DETECTION

The app detects your start and finish gate crossings geometrically and corrects for your antenna's distance from the front of your vehicle. The result: finish times accurate to milliseconds, not seconds.

WORKS WITH YOUR GEAR

- iPhone built-in GPS — works anywhere, no extra hardware

- RaceBox Mini S / Micro — 25 Hz, ±2-5 m

- ArduSimple RTK (simpleRTK2B + BT+BLE Bridge) — multiband L1/L2, ±0.02-0.5 m with NTRIP corrections

You can configure two GPS receivers simultaneously and ORA will fuse them for redundancy and precision.

BUILT-IN COURSES

- BBORR Northbound (Sanderson → Fort Stockton)

- BBORR Southbound (Fort Stockton → Sanderson)

- Buffalo Bayou 45 (Houston practice)

- Short North / Short South (Fort Stockton practice)

Plus you can import any GPX file as a custom course or record a new one by driving it.

MULTI-LEG SUPPORT

Two-leg events like BBORR are scored on cumulative delta across both runs. ORA tracks each leg, applies offsets between legs (auto or manual), and shows you the combined event delta on the finish screen.

GUIDED SETUP, EVERY RACE

A clean setup wizard walks you through the few things that matter every time you race: the course, your target speed, single vs multi-leg, scheduled vs flying start, your GPS device(s), and your antenna offset. Settings stay sticky across races; the wizard just confirms before each session.

PRIVACY-RESPECTING

ORA has no servers, no analytics, no tracking, no ads. Your race data stays on your device. Export to CSV or GPX whenever you want; nothing is shipped anywhere without your action.

WHO IT'S FOR

Open road racers competing in time-trial events. Drivers who want to win their class at BBORR, Silver State, Sandhills, and similar courses. Tuners and pace-car drivers who care about hitting an average to within a tenth.

WHAT IT'S NOT

Not a track day app. Not a lap timer. Not for autocross. ORA is built specifically for open-road point-to-point time trials.