In the first two races of the 2020 season, weather has been a factor for NASCAR events. NASCAR events are not only about fierce competition on the track, but also involve complex logistics for teams getting to and from each event every week. NASCAR teams are competing at the highest levels of motorsport in the world–every piece of data and every insight gained counts towards winning a race. Ford Performance works with its Ford NASCAR teams to provide engineering and analytics support during the week and at each event to help its teams gain an edge towards winning.
With race teams primarily headquartered in the Charlotte, North Carolina area, the teams are traveling from coast to coast the first four weeks of the season as part the Daytona 500 and then NASCAR’s West Coast Swing. Each race team travels to the track with anywhere from 10 to 20 people and each event has at least 36 race teams competing. Add to that NASCAR’s support staff, the 3 competing manufacturer’s support staff, and network TV’s support staff and you have hundreds of people and tons of equipment traveling to each event each week. Any type of weather delay creates a major concern for the race teams and all those people supporting the event being able to get back to Charlotte and then back to the West coast in time for the next event.
At both Daytona and Las Vegas events, rain moved into the vicinity of the race track during the weekend and race teams had to adjust their race strategy and their logistics schedules. Using Tomorrow.io insights and HyperCast technology, Ford Performance is able to get the latest, most accurate weather data and forecasts to its race teams so they can not only adjust how they prepare and strategize for the race itself, but how they prepare for weather delays and handle the logistic challenges they face each week. At Daytona and Las Vegas events, Tomorrow.io worked with Ford Performance engineers at the track to forecast to-the-minute arrival of precipitation during competition which supports the race teams in race strategy decisions. Then Tomorrow.io was able to provide longer range forecasts to support Ford’s teams logistics and planning for how long the event would be delayed and when competition would restart from the weather delays.
We congratulate Ford Performance and its NASCAR race teams as they are off to a winning start this season—3 wins across NASCAR’s three national touring series is a fantastic start to the season!