AI in NASCAR: The ‘Pit Rho’ Strategy

It’s almost time to reset the clocks and hang up new calendars, to usher in the New Year. However, before we let go of the past and look forward to the future, here is a question for everyone, will robots take over humans and perhaps take seats as NASCAR drivers? The answer can be both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ but is assuredly a long shot into the future. However, what does the near future hold for the masses, or perhaps the next year?

Before this whole thing becomes more complex and inexplicable, to clear the air, the year 2023 stands as a testament to the uncharted powers of Artificial Intelligence. One may find these words baffling and unable to comprehend the correlation between AI and NASCAR, but what if it’s said, that the sport had already tried and tested the potency of the artificial intelligence, even before ChatGPT sent the world in a whirlwind? Well, if these words don’t seem to be convincing enough, it is time to delve deeper and unearth how NASCAR has already made strides into the future.

Artificial Intelligence shakes the traditional strategy moves of NASCAR

What are the first things that come to mind when the word NASCAR is brought up? For many, it would be stock cars and oval tracks, while for others it would the names like Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty. While there is no denying the fact that drivers, tracks, and cars are the quintessential part of NASCAR, these make up just the tip of the iceberg. Rather, it is the complex amalgamation of strategies including pit-stops, running simulations, and infinite premeditated gambles to find the right balance and churn out maximum gains. 

With that being said, what if it is told that software could take over the role of a decision maker and calculate when a car is supposed to make pit stops in order to maximize the chances of winning? Well, that was the ideology of the groundbreaking software, named Pit Rho, that was co-founded by Josh Browne and a group of PhD fellows from MIT.

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What makes Browne the perfect man for the project is his past stint as a chief engineer for Red Bull’s short-lived NASCAR team. Speaking to Road and Track and spilling the beans on the creation of such a project, Brown stated, “I met a group of guys that all had PhDs from MIT. And they wanted to do predictive analytics for motorsports.”

The AI model, that was possibly touted to be a race winner predictor soon spread its wings into a larger and more race-focused arena. “We spent about a year or so building a predictive model to do gambling because we recognized that you could pretty much beat the system in Vegas on some of the sports books betting on NASCAR because their lines were sub-optimal in some cases,” he added.

It was not long before the project caught the attention of the automobile giant General Motors which funded it, in hopes of not just predicting race winners but creating them too. The AI firm also joined hands with RCR to work on automated pit stop strategies. 

Richard Childress Racing’s leap of faith tests the power of Artificial Intelligence

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It was Pit Rho’s collaboration with Richard Childress Racing, that proved the power of artificial intelligence and reaped benefits for the team. RCR fetched a long-awaited victory, by snapping its 112 races of winless drought. This trailblazing event occurred back in 2017, during the race at Phoenix, and the driver who reached the milestone was none other than Ryan Newman. The incident happened before the final caution was waved. 

With just 90 seconds in hand to decide whether to stay on the track or come into the pit road, Newman’s crew chief Luke Lambert gambled upon the data and the analytics available to him and decided to stay on the track. Well, the outcome of the race is known to every NASCAR fan. A victory for Newman after 127 races going winless. However, the team and the driver had Pit Rho to thank for the victory, which had apparently suggested a strategy perfect enough for the win. 

The aftermath of the successful run saw Pit Rho, now Rho AI, being roped into an exclusive contract with General Motors. And today, the real-time motorsports strategy software has made its way into many more NASCAR teams. 

While traditional practices in NASCAR are yet to be substituted with coming-of-age technologies, there is no denying the fact Pit Rho is surely a leap into the future, paving the way and making the races more strategic than intuitive.

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