Live From Daytona 500: NASCAR Commemorates 75th-Anniversary Season With Special Mixed-Reality Open The Famous Group will be at the center of the diamond celebration By Kristian Hern ndez, Senior Editor
Sunday, February 19, 2023 - 8:00 am
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February 21, 1948. That's the date when 69 days' worth of conversations at the Streamline Hotel on Daytona Beach led to the founding of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. Nearly 75 years to the day, and 6 miles to the west at Daytona International Speedway, NASCAR and The Famous Group (TFG) will honor this illustrious history with an elaborate mixed-reality (MR) open featuring past winners and their respective cars at the top of Fox Sports' broadcast.
Being able to take an event like the Daytona 500 to create awareness about our 75th season is pretty incredible, says Amy Anderson, head of content strategy, NASCAR. It's the one race that brings everyone together at the start of our season.
A preview of the mixed-reality open for Fox Sports' broadcast of the 2023 Daytona 500
The Mission for Creative: Condensing 75 Years Into Two Minutes NASCAR has come a long way since its beginning in the early 1900s. Rooted in bootleggers' driving small, quick, and maneuverable cars to evade detection during Prohibition, the activity slowly became a sport that merged the latest in machinery and the need for speed. After its founding by former mechanic Bill France Sr., NASCAR ran an organized race on the sands of Daytona Beach annually until Feb. 23, 1958.
Since 1958, the race has been run at Daytona International Speedway. In April 2021, Anderson joined the NASCAR family to assist the NASCAR Studios division and, almost immediately, was brought on to the commemoration project to precede Sunday's jewel event. She and SVP/Chief Digital Officer Tim Clark put their heads together on the effort.
We're interested in doing things that engage the fans in new ways, she says. Tim eventually reached out to The Famous Group and realized that we needed to start talking about ideas with them.
Known as the premier destination for mixed-reality activations for live sports broadcasts, TFG has a track record of success. Projects in its portfolio include work with teams and venues - the Baltimore Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium, the Carolina Panthers at Bank of America Stadium, the Houston Texans at NRG Stadium - as well as league-specific initiatives like the NFL 100 All-Time Team introduced at Super Bowl LIV on Fox in 2020. One project in particular - the MR panther devised by Director/Executive Producer, Game Presentation and Production, Mike Bonner - inspired NASCAR Studios to enlist the help of The Famous Group. Not only did it strike close to home creatively, but the home of the Panthers is less than a mile from NASCAR's office in Charlotte, NC.
NASCAR's Ken Martin, seen here in an interview for Untold Stories, made sure that the look of the MR cars was accurate.
Initially, Clark and Anderson contemplated showing off the concept during NASCAR's unofficial start to the season: the Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum. The prospect of having this presentation done at the iconic Los Angeles Coliseum was tantalizing, but kicking off the 75th-anniversary celebration on its biggest stage with fans of all ages was the better option.
If you're a longtime fan or you're a new fan, you're going to find some reason to create that connection with the sport, says Anderson. We want fans to say, I remember going to that race or seeing that moment' or give someone a new experience with their family member that makes them want to be a part of new memories moving forward.
Having 75 years of history can be seen as both a good and a bad thing: an extensive history allows multiple ideas to come to the surface, but it's difficult to shrink 7 decades of memories into two minutes. When the final plan was conceived and put into motion, NASCAR Director, Historical Content, Ken Martin made sure that small and big details were accurate.
People know paint schemes and sponsors of cars over the years, adds Anderson. It's cool to see the level of attention that these fans have about the packages that teams used to run.
Linking Past and Present: The Rundown of Sunday's Presentation The creative team came up with what they're calling The Greatest Lap. On a mixed-reality track running atop the actual track at Daytona International Speedway, cars from different eras will race side by side. As the cars make their way around, mixed-reality videoboards will pop up along the track to display real-time highlights of past Daytona 500s.
From a legacy standpoint, NASCAR owns the rights to team names and cars, so the field will feature winners from different generations. These include the father-son duo of Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the first winner, in 1958, Lee Petty. In addition, fans watching the race in person will be able to see the presentation via the LED videoboards at the track.
Rehearsals conducted throughout the week have produced remarkable results, with real-life cars matching the pace and speed of their MR counterparts. With a project of this size and scale, the biggest challenge was making sure that the activation fit on the 2.5-mile track.
NASCAR's Amy Anderson, seen in the broadcast compound, led the anniversary project with Tim Clark.
We're tracking cars going around a large and long canvas, notes Anderson. We needed to do all of this while also making sure that the cars look realistic and mixing together videos of various resolutions. There are a lot of pieces to this puzzle.
On the broadcast side of the endeavor, NASCAR collaborated with Fox Sports SVP, Production and Talent Development, Jacob Ullman; SVP,
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Live From Daytona 500: NASCAR Commemorates 75th-Anniversary Season With Special Mixed-Reality Open The Famous Group will be at the center of the diamond celebration By Kristian Hern ndez, Senior Editor 
