NASCAR fans have grown accustomed to seeing speed, throttle and braking on broadcasts for years. There has been one measurement, though, that has eluded networks and viewers for years.
Until now.
Viewers of the Prime Video races have been able to see fuel usage with the introduction of the Burn Bar. Race teams have measured burn rates and fuel levels down to the last ounce for years, but the methodology has been kept secret for competitive reasons.
Prime Video, though, developed an AI tool using car data available to broadcasters and teams that can measure miles per gallon. The Burn Bar made a brief appearance during Prime's first broadcast, the Coca-Cola 600 on May 25. It has been used more frequently the past two weeks and will be deployed again on Sunday during the race in Mexico City.
NASCAR on Prime analyst Steve Letarte, a former crew chief for Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr., contributed to the development of the Burn Bar and sees it as the first step in taking race analysis to a new level.
''It's the first true tool that is taking information off the car, making calculations and then displaying to the fan a calculation or measurement that is being used in the garage. And it does affect the team,'' he said. ''There's not a sensor on the car giving us miles per gallon. It's a mathematical calculation of other cars performances.''
The AI model analyzes thousands of performance data per second, including a range of in-car telemetry signals, RPMs, throttle and optical tracking of each car's position. The model then evaluates each driver's fuel consumption and efficiency throughout the race.
Letarte worked with Prime Video ''Thursday Night Football Prime Vision" analyst Sam Schwartzstein and Amazon Web Services during the process. They came up with four methodologies that were tested during the first part of the season, which was broadcast by Fox. Schwartzstein and Letarte would then get the data from teams after races to see how close they were until they picked one that worked the best.
