Fans are you ready for the future of NASCAR? NASCAR executives are preparing to take fans and competition to the next level.

NASCAR is recognized as a sports leader in bringing fans closer to the experience both at the track and to those watching from home. And today NASCAR reinforced their goal of constantly improving their core product by announcing their launch of a wide-ranging initiative to transform its Competition and in turn, enhance the fan experience.

This initiative began in 2012 with direction from NASCAR CEO, Brian France, as a careful evaluation of Competition, with a world-class consulting firm, who has worked with about every major sport in America and globally, McKinsey & Company. Also brought on for this project is automotive executive Brent Dewar.

“…this really started back in May or June of last year with Brian asking NASCAR to really lead in the technology and innovation space,” said Steve O’Donnell. “So we started out, a group of us, going out to a number of the leaders in the technology space from a company standpoint.  We met with a lot of the leading universities in the U.S., as well, and gathered some data as to what are some of the new emerging technologies, what could we be at NASCAR’s research and development center, and from there really applied that to what we have in place today and how we needed to change or evolve to become worldwide leaders in the innovation space. That led us obviously to the guy on my right with the hiring of Gene Stefanyshyn and initiatives that we’re looking at today.”

A steering committed led by Mike Helton, Steve O’Donnell, Gene Stefanyshyn, Robin Pemberton and Steve Phelps created and guided four internal ‘working teams’ to create a blueprint accomplishing their goal of transforming Competition in four key areas of Rules, Governance, Deterrence/Penalties and Officiating/Inspection.

There have been two primary goals from the outset – continue to modernize Competition by injecting science and technology into all of their operations – as Brian France has repeatedly declared – and position NASCAR as a leader in the sports and entertainment marketplace of the future

The working teams have developed blueprints for 11 initiatives within the four key areas.  They are:

Governance

• Move rule-making from Officiating to R&D / Innovation
• Enhance effectiveness of appeals process by redefining process and appeals board member criteria

Rules

• Simplify rulebook and increase objectivity by replacing written rules with CAD designs
• Enhance parts approval by formalizing submission and approval process
• Increase consistency of rule interpretation across National Series

Penalty / Deterrence

• Strengthen deterrence model to reduce inspection required to ensure competitive racing

Officiating / Inspection

• Increase use of technology on pit road
• Maintain rigor of inspection while creating greater efficiency in the entire process
• Improve efficiency of process by creating race team inspection scheduling system
• Enhance effectiveness of inspection through data collection and trend analysis
• Create unified inspecting and officiating model across National Series

After giving an overview of the initiatives to take place, Steve O’Donnell introduced Gene Stefanyshyn to give more detail about rule changes.

“In the area of rules, there are really three major initiatives,” said Gene Stefanyshyn. “The first one is our objective to attempt to simplify and increase the objectivity of the rules book.  The fundamental or foundational element of this will be for us to migrate from a rule book which is largely text-based to one which will be math-based.  When I say math-based, I mean they will be computer-aided design drawings or CAD drawings.  I think this is absolutely critical. We know that all the OEMs, all the supply base, most manufacturers do have engineering drawings.  Most of these are now in a math-based world.  We need to migrate to that.  I think also we began to tiptoe into that as I understand when we were working the Gen-6 car, so this is not necessarily new to us.  Most of the teams said that was a very, very good initiative.

 

Stefanyshyn went on to say that along with moving to a math-based format is making the rule book available online in real-time. This will give teams the most up-to-date information while also allowing them to download the most accurate detailed information for their use.

“The second area is a parts approval process,” said Stefanyshyn. “I think for us one of the things we’ve heard loud and clear from some of the teams is we want more transparency here, so we want to develop a process which is very transparent, structured so all the teams know where they play, how they play, how the decisions will be made, and we want to set up a regular cadence of meetings to be able to do this, and this will also include peer reviews.”

The intention here is to increase the level of communication for everyone at the same time, so everyone feels they’re being treated fairly. And that should improve the competition, allowing teams to spend their time on more value-added activities.

“The third element of the rules piece is to attempt to bring more consistency to our three major national series,” said Stefanyshyn. “Over time some of these have diverged a bit.  Our expectation here is we want to review those.  Again, our objective here is to make the race product better.  Everything we’re doing is with that superordinate goal in mind. And those rules we think which are having people spend energy in non-value-added areas, we’d like to give them that time back to work on other things.  So we want to remove the non-value-added activities, and we also want to provide assistance to those teams which are in multiple series.”

“So again, all this is about reinvention and to put money back into the sport to grow the sport and to take it forward.”

 

With a discussion about rules, comes conversation about the penalties and apparently NASCAR has learned much from their experience, as well as feedback from those going through the process.

“…as you go into the penalty phases of the rule book and where it’s laid out, NASCAR has been criticized sometimes for being somewhat subjective, and when we look at the rule book in the future, we want to categorize penalties so they’re listed out in the rule book.  So when you look at parts that are approved, when you look at CAD drawings, the next step for us is for the teams to clearly understand what’s right, what’s wrong, and so you’re going to see in the rule book X infraction equals X penalty.  Therefore when you look at the part, you look at the CAD drawing, you look at the potential penalty, and then ultimately you look at the appeals process, we think it will be much more clearly defined not only for us and our competitors but for the race fans, as well.

“Ultimately all of this that we’re looking at is to make it more clear.  We still want our teams to innovate. That’s not something we’re going away from.  But we just want to paint a clearer picture.”

Steve O’Donnell made it clear that technology is front and center while developing their ongoing plans. The use of technology will increase, particularly on pit road, making this a showcase area where fans can become much more engaged not only at the racetrack but viewing at home as well.

“You look at the potential for all the data that comes out of those stops,” said O’Donnell. “What fans could potentially see at the track as they look at a pit stop with a number of our partners, when you look at HP, 3M, Whelen, you could envision some lights above each pit stall.  You can envision some new technology that shows fans that exactly what’s happening during each stop.  You could envision technology that allows us to communicate immediately real-time through apps at track or at home that enables fans to really be in the race and know exactly what’s happening during each pit stop.

“So again, it becomes something we look at where we can showcase technology, we can bring in some emerging technologies, as well, and demonstrate some really cool aspects at the track.”

Next is Officiating, the means of implementing and enforcing NASCAR rules of the road. Robin Pemberton made it clear that going forward with their plans, they are not going to inspect cars less, but their intention is to keep up a level playing field at all times.

“As we go forward at the racetrack, we’re going to try to be more efficient there,” said Pemberton. “We’re going to decrease the amount of time that we spend inspecting cars in some of the areas. We’re looking at streamlining some of our pre-practice inspections.  We’re going to maintain or increase some of our pre-qualifying inspections and maintain and increase our post-race inspection, whether it is at track or back here at the R & D Center.

“A lot of these changes that we’re going to put in play at the racetrack is in an effort to get the teams more practice time as it relates to their race setups, and those and other benefits will be to have more flexible time if we get a rain delay or things like that, we’ll be able to get some of our practice time back.  It’s in an effort to increase a lot of our practice time for the race setups.

“We’ll also be looking at potential qualifying changes that will enhance that aspect for the fans moving forward.”

Enhanced inspections will happen through data collection and trend analysis. Brian France has made a commitment to give the needed resources for real-time data between the racetrack and the R&D Center. It’s a huge investment in cutting edge technology, that can pay off by making NASCAR the leader in the sports and entertainment industry and that means also enhancing the core product for fans.

And finally, there’s improved consistency in officiating across NASCAR’s three national series.

“…we’re going to create a unified officiating model across all three of our national series,” said Pemberton.  Simply put, the officials will be NASCAR officials.  They will be no longer a Sprint Cup official, a Camping World Truck series official or a Nationwide official.  We previously noted that we have similarities across all of our series, but they do have variables, and we think with the new technologies that are in place here at the R & D Center, the new technology that we will have in play at the racetracks, we will be able to move forward and inspect our cars properly with a common officiating staff.  It will be more efficient not just for ourselves but also for the race teams as we move forward.”

Today’s announcement is just the beginning. A number of ideas will be implemented in time for the 2014 season and many will require more time.

“These initiatives will be outlined and in place by the start of the 2015 season,” said Steve O’Donnell. “Some of them you’ll see as early as 2014, but the majority you’ll see prior to the 2015 season.”

Although fans will have to wait to see some of these initiatives implemented, one point is clear from NASCAR’s announcement – it’s a new era in the sport and for its fans. So buckle up and get ready for the future of NASCAR!