It’s easy to enumerate a long list of technological innovations in NASCAR racing—from the NASCAR Green agenda to the Fan and Media Engagement Center to the Air Titan track-drying system to the online rulebook and parts database—but one of the most innovative changes is yet to come, according to NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O’Donnell.
“Next year, starting at Daytona, we’ll be implementing technology as a referee in our sport,” O’Donnell said Wednesday at the NASCAR Motorsports Marketing Forum.
Not only will race officials have a database at their disposal for inspections, but calls on pit road also will be made based on real-time video observation of every aspect of a pit stop.
“We believe we’ll be the first sport to incorporate technology in every second of every race,” O’Donnell said. “Everything will be under review.”
From May on, NASCAR ran the “technological refereeing” as a redundant system to the human officiating. O’Donnell said the Chase race at Phoenix would have yielded 75 penalties on the technological side, for example, something the sanctioning body will have to address with the teams.
Accordingly, NASCAR is taking crew chiefs and pit crew coaches through the system next week to familiarize them with the new “referee” before the system goes live at Daytona.
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