Great racing athletes are able to visualize their every move giving them a mental picture for how they should perform. For the rest of us, Chevrolet may have the answer in the form of its Performance Data Recorder (PDR) in the 2015 Corvette Stingray, which is notable as it is the first telematics system to be included in a production car.

As Stuart Fowle, assistant communications manager for OnStar/GCC Communications at General Motors explains, the PDR consists of a camera mounted behind the rear view mirror combined with metadata (e.g. g-readings, engine speed, car speed, braking data,) to provide a record of one’s drive. In the above interview, Fowle discusses the idea of using it on the racetrack, but as an article in the L.A. Times suggests, this data could also be used to catch the valet that decides to take your ‘Vette for a joy ride while you were enjoying a relaxing dinner or record your family road trip.

In this version, developed by Cosworth, the data stays in the glove-mounted PDR on an SD card. As Fowle emphasizes, the data is the customers and stays on the card. Given that the U.S. Department of Transportation has just issued its Proposed Notice of Rulemaking for Vehicle to Vehicle communications, it is not too difficult to imagine a future version of the PDR with a wireless broadband connection, allowing one’s friends to see a racetrack performance or mom and and dad monitoring junior’s driving in real-time (of course, what parent would let a kid drive a Corvette?).