NASCAR’s Telemetry Revolution: In today’s NASCAR Cup races, data is king. Each NextGen car carries 60+ sensors feeding the Electronic Control Unit (ECU) – everything from engine RPM to brake pressure – back to the pits at blistering rates. NASCAR reports that over 600,000 telemetry messages per second stream off the track during a race, roughly 92 MB/s of raw data.
That adds up to on the order of 1.3 terabytes per race. As NASCAR VP Steve Stum notes, “By far and away, NASCAR produces more content, more data, and more video off of a single race than anybody”. This torrent of information, collected every 10 milliseconds via at-track relay stations and mobile data centers, is the fuel for virtually every decision in the garage and broadcast booth.
Under the Hood: Building the Data Pipeline
NASCAR’s infrastructure for handling this data is a feat of engineering. The on-board ECU packs sensor data every 10 ms and beams it via UHF radio to a Mobile Data Center (MDC) at each track. There it is de-aggregated and pushed through a cloud-based Event Racing Data Platform (ERDP) over ultra-low latency links. From car to cloud in under ~200 ms, teams (and NASCAR) see real-time feeds of every car’s status.
In practical terms, teams can monitor over 60 data points per car hundreds of times per second. NASCAR even partnered with AWS to build this system – “we pushed the limits on AWS,” Stum says – so that fans and broadcasters can tap the same data. The NASCAR Drive app (formerly TrackPass) now boasts live 360° in-car camera views and “the same car telematics as the driver and team” for its 80+ million users.
Behind the scenes, industry tools organize this firehose of numbers. SMT’s RACEf/x system, used by NASCAR broadcasts, fuses GPS and ECU inputs to produce live race graphics. It delivers on-screen elements like “pointer and telemetry graphics” driven by speed, throttle, brake and other metrics.
Meanwhile, the SMT Team Analytics platform ingests timing loops and the live telemetry feed so that every team can compare data from all cars. As SMT notes, “almost every Cup and Xfinity team” now uses this tool “to analyze and evaluate car behavior and driver inputs in a real time, live environment as well as in replay”.
Strategy by the Numbers: Teams Use Data to Race Smarter
Armed with this telemetry, crew chiefs and engineers plot race strategy down to the foot. Telemetry-driven analysis now underpins pit timing, fuel calculations and setup adjustments. For example, Richard Childress Racing’s technical director Eric Kominek explains how an AI-assisted pit system uses live fuel-flow and telemetry data to fine-tune strategy: “The telemetry data, in conjunction with the exact fuel adds, allows the teams to calculate fuel mileage to within 100 feet”.
Such precision means pit crews know precisely how much fuel to add, shaving precious seconds (and ounces) off each stop. Teams also track tire temperature, brake wear and even throttle/brake overlap in real time. All of these metrics feed simulations and predictive models that guide when to pit or adjust the car’s balance. After every stint, engineers pore over lap-by-lap telemetry for hidden gains – comparing brake-foot clearance or corner exit speeds from the data logger.
That said, the ubiquity of data has its critics. Some crew chiefs lament that sharing telemetry levels the competitive field. Randall Burnett, crew chief for Kyle Busch, recently quipped that because “everybody’s got the same car… and everybody has access to so much information… the difference between winning and a 20th-place car is so minute these days”.
He argues that instant access to rivals’ braking maps and throttle-zone data can make races more homogeneous. Nonetheless, teams keep mining data for any edge. Even Toyota Racing Development (TRD) – NASCAR’s championship-winning engine builder – transformed its workflow by corralling telemetry on AWS.
TRD’s Jonny Elliott recalls that pre-cloud they had “an awful lot of data, but it was disparate and… wasn’t really providing value”. Structured analytics changed that, helping TRD leverage in-car logs to win manufacturers’ titles. Today’s teams similarly scan every byte – literally comparing carbon copy cars’ data to find tenths per lap.
Officiating by the Numbers: How NASCAR Uses Data to Enforce the Rules
Telemetry isn’t just for strategy; NASCAR officials increasingly consult it to police the sport. Modern sanctioning takes a “data-driven approach,” says Steve Phelps of Samsung (NASCAR’s tech partner). In fact, for 2025 NASCAR built a new Remote Race Control room packed with large displays showing video and live data from every car.
As Stum explains, the setup will provide “unparalleled views of more than 200 camera angles with multiple data points from every car,” allowing officials to make calls “faster and more accurately than ever”. Onboard ECU feeds – including brake pressure and speed traces – can confirm infractions or clear misunderstandings.
(Drivers know it too: after an on-track incident at Nashville, racer Carson Hocevar insisted that the SMT telemetry would show a very different picture of what happened.) Pit-road speeding and unsafe equipment changes are now caught by sensors rather than spotters’ eyes alone, and even restart timing is monitored by data rather than stopwatch. In short, NASCAR’s rulebook is steadily becoming as digital as the cars themselves.
Data for the Fans: Live Leaderboards, Apps and AI Content
Perhaps most visible to viewers is how telemetry has leaped out of the garage onto our screens. NASCAR’s mobile apps and broadcasts lean on live data to engage fans in real time. For starters, the official NASCAR app now features “Live Telemetry for real-time race data” and enhanced leaderboards with fuel and tire info.
Subscribers can watch dozens of in-car camera feeds alongside dashboards of speed, RPM, sector times and pit timers – essentially the same gauges crew chiefs see. In races fans can track the field with data overlays; TV coverage often shows a “ghost” car graphic using timing loops so viewers can compare gaps to the leader. And it’s working: NASCAR reports that users spend up to 30 minutes or more glued to the data screens each race.
This second-screen push is only accelerating. NASCAR’s Patrick Carroll notes they finally have the tools to turn data into digestible content. “We have such a large amount of data, and we’ve just historically struggled to find ways to present that to fans,” he said. In 2024 NASCAR began trialing AI-driven highlights in the Track app: telemetry is fed into a generative engine that can “predict what we think is going to happen in the next few laps… and give me a good summary of what has happened up to now and why so-and-so is in [a particular] position”.
Early versions of these features debuted at the Chicago Street Race, with live “Leader” camera views chosen by predictive algorithms. Next season, we can expect more personalized data feeds – in-app alerts on a favorite driver’s pace or fuel window – pushing the flood of numbers into fan-friendly form.
NASCAR’s data revolution spans every lane of the sport. Teams fine-tune setups in the pits with supercomputer speed, officials oversee “smart” race control rooms, and the average fan can monitor speed and strategy on a phone. As the sport ramps up its analytics and AI, the championship may be decided just as much by who best reads the data as who best drives the track. As Patrick Carroll puts it, telemetry is no longer just a technical backwater – it’s becoming NASCAR’s new front page of the scoreboard.
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