New initiatives for V8 Supercars in 2008

New initiatives designed improve the judicial process, vehicle recoveries and enable spectators to better identify individual cars are amongst the improvements to the 2008 V8 Supercar Championship Series.
The V8 Supercar Championship Series begins in Adelaide next month with the Series being officially launched in Melbourne on February 6.

V8 Supercars Australia will use more prominent numbers in the rear side windows of all cars to allow those at the track the officials and watching on television to more easily identify competitors, particularly on cars with similar appearances. Additionally the style of number will be a standard configuration to further assist identification.

The numbers were trialled by current Champion Garth Tander at last year’s rounds in Tasmania and Phillip Island, shown in the attached picture, were found to be highly visible on both television and at the track.

They will be fluorescent yellow in colour and occupy the space in the rear side window. Additionally numbers on the rear windscreen will be moved from the bottom middle to the top right for easier identification.

Driver names will remain on the lower portion of the rear windows as they were in 2007. As with the numbers the style will be fixed.

V8 Supercars Australia will also introduce “Chase Cam” into every car in the Series as the in-car camera used by the judiciary to review incidents and also for broadcast quality pictures that can be used for television when required.

These are in addition to the Seven in-car cameras already utilised for the telecast. The Chase Cam replaces the former in-car cameras that were older technology and more difficult to extract data from. The Chase Cam technology allows a hard disk to simply be removed from the unit and re-inserted into a television or computer for instant replays.

The digital recorders write directly to Compact Flash for easy drag-and-drop computer transfer in Mpeg-2 format. Extremely rugged, it is currently being used by many top racing teams and several television programs. The video processor allows for simple picture-in-picture or split screen video.

V8 Supercars Australia has also appointed a fulltime Recovery Coordinator in an effort to speed up the process of removing cars that have left the track or suffered damage as the result of a mechanical issue or accident.

Experience recovery expert Alistair Walker will assume the role of overseeing all recoveries and assisting local officials in training and preparing for all scenarios.