Video: Microsoft and NASCAR announcement

NASCAR and Microsoft for today’s Sprint Cup Series Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway are debuting a new competition-focused app that will streamline the sanctioning body’s race management system. The Race Management App, which is not consumer-facing to start and leverages Microsoft’s Windows 10 and Azure platforms, brings together six different aspects of NASCAR’s current race management system that previously were on different screens onto one app. Examples include pit-road officiating, weather tracking, timing/scoring and video replay. The app, which also will allow NASCAR to send teams video replays of pit-road penalties in a faster fashion, marks the next step in the sanctioning body’s quest to better manage the logistics around racing.

Microsoft, which entered the sport last year as an official partner of NASCAR and Hendrick Motorsports, unveiled the app during a press conference Friday at SMI-owned Sonoma with Dir & Principal Evangelist of Sports Mike Downey plus NASCAR Exec VP & Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O’Donnell. Today’s race at 3:00pm ET on FS1 is the last race of Fox Sports’ half of the season before NBC Sports takes over next weekend at Daytona.