User blog:Ajaxcupseries/How Big of a Role Will Analytics Play in the New Era of the ASCA?

The Fallon Corner - February 2026

While much talk has gone around in recent months about the sweeping driver changes throughout the decade thus far - including ASCA legend Randle Woods announcing his retirement after this upcoming season - not many know about the changes behind the scenes in how teams operate in the new era of the sport.

The introduction of the V6 turbo hybrid engines for 2026 is the big change everyone knows about; but what about the introduction of analytics and simulators as technology continues to ramp up in recent years?

Simulators have become a staple of the ASCA by this point, a critical portion of car development and reps comes from data collected during those sessions. Many drivers aren’t exactly getting much rest during this off-season - instead spending their time off to further hone their craft on these.

The data from these sessions then goes into a new segment of statistics for drivers and crew chiefs to mull over when making important decisions: analytics.

Analytics have completely swept the world of sports as of late, as coaches from football to golf use computers to help with mulling over how to handle critical situations.

The world of racing is no different, with a championship battle as historically close as we saw a season ago there is zero margin for error to beat the best of the best - and as we know with humans, they are far from perfect.

Many of the brightest young minds in the sport as crew chiefs now use these analytics to help make critical decisions, such as newcomers to the top level Oliver Banks and Sam Rosberg, who won multiple races and the championship in the Craftsman Series last year respectively.

This extra data that they use is critical extra information for their drivers, as it allows the men atop the box to provide added input on what the driver can do to pick up the pace, or manage his current margin over the field.

It also makes pit strategy for crew chiefs much easier, as in depth tire wear and fuel usage figures means gone are the days where ASCA Hall of Famer Ronnie Woods needed to keep a calculator in his fire suit to put together how much he had left in the tank under yellow flag conditions.

But where analytics are of peak importance - may just surprise you.

Plate racing in the ASCA has always been thought of as a crapshoot, where luck plays a much bigger role in the outcomes than driver skill and just about anybody can win at Ajax Superspeedway.

However, is this actually the case?

Further examination shows that statement could not be farther from the truth.

Remember Doug Bowden’s miraculous comeback drive from seventh to first in half a lap to win the Fastenal 200 a year ago?

Analytics played a HUGE role in dictating the former Craftsman Series champion’s pivotal moves on that restart, as his spotter Mark Dyson fed him critical information off turn 2 that a move on Cameron Atwood for the lead had an ‘extremely high’ percentage chance of happening with help from Chris Barrymore.

Once Bowden got the top spot, Dyson continued feeding him data on which lane had the highest probability of completing an overtake so he’d know exactly who to prioritize blocking - ultimately leading to another upset victory for the No. 4 team.

Spotters already play a crucial enough role as is during plate races just trying to keep their drivers out of trouble, but now they are arguably the most important member of the team providing constant analytics on which lanes have the momentum and which ones do not.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to the man behind the wheel to make the right decisions at the right time. But if you see drivers taking less chances and less accidents occurring during Speedweeks this year - now you know why.