WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — On a hazy August day at The Glen, a racetrack in northern New York not far from the Finger Lakes where NASCAR hosts one of its regular-season races, a tractor trailer buzzes alive with energy on a patch of grass.
The 53-foot custom-built Featherlite trailer is among the auto association’s most powerful new tools. With its own servers and several laptop and monitor stations that line the walls, the high-tech truck analyzes data from dozens of cameras and sensors strewn across pit road to help officials identify pit stop infractions that would be easy to miss with the human eye.
This truck and the technology it houses are part of NASCAR’s efforts to streamline the officiating process by more accurately pinpointing infractions with less human power — no easy feat when cars are zipping around the course at 200 miles per hour and zooming down pit road at 50 mph.
Today, eight officials sit inside the trailer watching screens, which show randomized pit stops at double the speed. The software scans each pit stop before it’s presented to officials, prioritizing the ones with infractions and allowing each official to cover more ground. Another 10 officials stand down at pit road in fire suits watching the other side of the cars in person. Overall, this has reduced the amount of officials NASCAR requires at each race to 16 from 43 prior.
This streamlined officiating process has saved NASCAR millions of dollars over the past few years, plucked from the reduced headcount and fewer workstations that NASCAR is required to transport, setup and takedown at each race.
But perhaps more importantly, the technology has cemented permanent changes to racing by making NASCAR races more transparent and its teams more honest.
The first time NASCAR turned on the electronic officiating system without telling teams, it counted more than 100 infractions in a single race. Since then, teams have learned about the process and its accuracy, bringing infractions down significantly.
At a May 20 race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, NASCAR boasted its first race ever with zero infractions — a huge win for NASCAR in its quest to adapt innovative technologies and a clear sign that the technology is shifting the game.
Of the infractions that have been called this season, teams are more often than in the past willing to leave them undisputed, the result of having been proven wrong too many times by video evidence and lasers that can accurately map pit road to within one-sixteenth of an inch.
The high-tech officiating process has replaced hoards of humans with sensors, lasers and cameras. When NASCAR arrives at a race, it sets up 46 Sony Ipela cameras with Fuji 8-80mm lenses. Each camera monitors two pit boxes, both for redundancy and so that race officials can ensure accurate triangulation.
.@NASCAR is racing toward digital transformation. Buckle up. https://t.co/zTLFwYDzKq
— Microsoft (@Microsoft) June 27, 2017
They use trigonometry to accurately map pit road, the formulas of which clutter dry erase boards that line the ceiling of the trailer. The lasers that map each pit box are the product of Hawk-Eye Innovations, the same company that provides precision electronic line calling at tennis matches.
If a car cuts even an inch into the wrong pit box, the software will notice and infractions will be doled out. If one member from the pit crew crosses over the wall a fraction of a second before they’re supposed to, the software will catch it and officials will review the clip up close at a snail’s pace as one might have expected of the NFL refs that reviewed Broncos defender Will Parks’ disputed 80-yard return in 2016 against the Saints, then issue violations.
It’s NASCAR’s version of instant replay minus the NFL’s red flag coaches’ challenges, notes George Grippo, the managing director of competition technology, timing and scoring at NASCAR Productions.
Data from pit road feeds into 23 HP servers that run vision processing and analytics software. An additional server collates the data and monitors the software and cameras system wide, while yet another acts as a fallback system, ensuring that the system won’t crash during races.
The technologies being used by NASCAR to improve the officiating process also seep into the pre-race inspection process. More than 60 Microsoft Surface tablets are used ahead of races to log and analyze more than 300 items on cars before they hit the track, from their engines and fuel systems to weights and body measurements, to ensure each team is playing by the rules.
The app has digitized the entire inspection process and the database that houses historic information about each team, which has slimmed down the entire inspection process to just a few minutes from much lengthier review periods previously.
Beginning this season, NASCAR extended the Microsoft race management system it adopted last year to team managers, enabling them to receive feeds of data about the race in one centralized location so they’re all on the same page. The app provides real-time stats about the race, including laps led, last lap speed, average lap time and fastest lap time, which are fed into a dashboard. Race officials receive a few additional third-party data sources as well, such as weather alerts, that help them to better manage race day operations.
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The Microsoft software includes video from the track, which Grippo said has proven especially helpful for road courses, such as Watkins Glen, where cars disappear out of sight for a portion of the lap. If NASCAR calls a violation, it can then back that call up with a bunch of other supporting data and video, which it says has “validated decisions made in race control.”
One day, NASCAR may consider giving broadcasters access to certain aspects of the race management system as well, which they could use to enhance their coverage with a spate of statistics and other visuals that would help engage fans tuning in from home. It has already experimented with ways to use technology to improve the fan experience, such as by allowing point-of-view video streams from inside cars during the championship series and allowing players to use wearable devices.
But for now, it remains laser-focused on using these race management technologies to enhance the actual race through improved officiating.
Earlier this year to complement all of these new Hawk-Eye officiating tools, NASCAR issued an updated deterrence system for its three national series that would shift toward a process that penalized pre-race infractions within a given race weekend.
Elton Sawyer, NASCAR Vice President of Officiating and Technical Inspection, told NASCAR.com at the time that the stricter pre-race and race officiating processes have been part of a goal to officiate and police within the event “more like football or basketball or any sporting event.”
“It’s very similar to a 15-yard penalty. If you can get three 15-yard penalties and you can still win the game or drive down and score a touchdown, then good for you,” he said. “If we can issue these penalties and you lose pit selection or you start at the back or a drive-through (penalty), and you can still come back and win the race, well then we feel like what that infraction was, the penalty fits the crime.”