What is the single, most important tool in racing these days? It’s a simple question and the answer is pretty obvious if you give it a little thought.

It’s the computer.

Computers have turned the sport upside down with untold numbers of programs that measure and record engine, chassis and body data. The engineers - the new millennium mechanics of the sport - then analyze the information and put it into action on the racetrack. Every inch of the vehicle is dissected to hopefully uncover the smallest scintilla of speed.

Meanwhile, almost every proposal, press release and exchange of information generated by the teams, PR/Marketing people, and the sponsors is either done on or supported by information generated on a computer. Even the fans have gotten into the act, using the computer as a ‘tool’ to quickly find news, live race video feeds and other interactive features in an effort to keep abreast of what is happening now in the sport.  

While today’s computerized racing world might seem like light years from when mechanics set the tow with a string and a ruler, the fact of the matter is that the computers have really been in the sport only about 15 years. That’s when technology in the computer industry found its way into just about everywhere with advent of two things - the laptop computer and the Internet.

Computers had been around for decades before the first portable laptop models were introduced in the 1970’s. Little more than word processors, the machines were more typewriters than computing machines. That changed by the 1990’s as smaller, faster and more versatile lap top models of computers were created.

Given the wealth of data and notes a race team generates, it was just a matter of time before computers – the ultimate notebook of our time - made their way into the garage area. Meanwhile, the exploding personal computer industry found its way into our personal homes as well in the late 90’s and thanks to the Internet, changed the way we exchanged information about racing forever.

Driver and series web sites popped up everywhere in the late 1990’s, as did news sites like NASCAR.com, Jayski and the like. Waiting for the newspaper the following morning to find out results about a specific event was now a thing of the past as the results, interviews and video clips of an event were now available immediately.

Computers not only changed racing, they changed our lives.

According to a recent United States Census Bureau report, 87 percent of adults 25 years older use a computer from their homes today, a number that is three times larger than what the USCB recorded just 12 years ago in 1997. The numbers are even higher for users under 25 years of age.

Talk about an explosion.

Auto racing – especially NASCAR – has been able to take advantage of that explosion both on and off the track. All sanctioning bodies and teams have used the computer to enhance and improve vehicle performance and safety. Meanwhile, public awareness of racing is at an all-time high thanks to the untold number of motorsports-related web sites and ‘reporters’ lending their voices to the sport.

Nope, of all the ‘tools’ available in racing these days, few do the job the computer does. Unless something else comes along that can spur a global information and communication revolution, it’s going to stay that way for a long time to come.

Drenched Again –

With the NASCAR Cup crowd off this past weekend, the spotlight fell to the Trucks and Nationwide cars. The Truck race at Chicago came off as usual – another Kyle Busch victory – while the Montreal Nationwide race event was a mixed bag of racing and a Marx Brothers movie.

The Nationwide race was a slam-bang affair with caution after caution slowing the event to a crawl. The 75-lap road course clash droned on past the four-hour mark when wet weather hit the track and the cars were called to pit road to bolt on windshield wipers and rain tires.

That’s when the slapstick insanity really started.

The final laps of Sunday’s race were played out in the wet conditions with cars careening everywhere. It almost boarded on silly. If we again learned anything from Sunday’s debacle, it’s that NASCAR racing does not translate well to wet weather conditions.

Never has, never will.

This reporter was part of a Cup team back at Watkins Glen in 1999 – 10 years ago - when we bolted on the same rain gear used at Montreal Sunday. It didn’t work back then and it doesn’t work now.

We can understand NASCAR’s desire to ‘give the fans a full show (and satisfy their television contracts) by racing in the rain. Unfortunately, NASCAR presents its own form of high-speed entertainment - a racing event unlike any other – that doesn’t translate to wet racing conditions at all. Trying to race NASCAR vehicles slower in the rain like other divisions (like sports cars) is like bringing a field of camels to a greyhound race .

Sooner or later, NASCAR is going to figure out that its particular brand of competition is like baseball, tennis, golf, and most of the other major sports that don’t play when there are inclement weather conditions. Holding the events in good weather is just a function of the sport to optimize the action, make it more exciting for the fans and safer for the participants.

Once and for all, NASCAR needs to accept that its races will be occasionally lost to bad weather conditions. Stop the drenching - no more rain tire races, please.