Live From the Indy 500: FOX's Zac Fields Says AR Is Set To Help Celebrate the Big Race

Live From the Indy 500: FOX's Zac Fields Says AR Is Set To Help Celebrate the Big Race Featuring the iconic scoring pylon, the open will tell the Indy 500 story By Ken Kerschbaumer

Friday, May 23, 2025 - 10:08 am

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FOX Sports will lean heavily into the world of augmented reality (AR) for this Sunday's Indianapolis 500, taking advantage of a Speedway full of iconic landmarks: the massive stand for more than 250,000 fans (with another 150,000 on the infield), Pit Road featuring a Pagoda Control Tower, a 78-ft.-tall scoring pylon that is the center of the attention for every fan at the track. And now, for viewers at home, the pylon will be integral to the opening shots of Race Day coverage.

We're going to have a really grand opening shot from Camera 1 that captures the atmosphere of the Speedway with a graphic covering the pylon, says Zac Fields, SVP, graphic tech/innovation, FOX Sports. Then, we can cut as we want with a camera on a 32-ft. techno crane that can move around. One of the cool things about this AR feature is, it's an homage to the history of the race, which we want to portray in a really good light.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway comprises 250 acres, a massive size that provides plenty of opportunities for AR graphics. But the FOX Sports AR team is focusing on the most important areas of the venue, with the 32-ft. techno crane near Pit Road (and able to move around) and Camera 1, located on the roof of Turn 1 and shooting down the front straightaway.

We've built a 3D model of the track, a digital twin, says Fields, and use geometry to intertwine it with the AR elements. That opening graphic will grow out of the pylon and tell the history of the Indianapolis 500.

Other elements also have been designed to be placed along the top of the grandstand, which runs along the front straightaway. The crane is going to get some interesting shots from a low angle of the pylon looking down the front stretch, says Fields. We will do some AR takeovers, similar to what we've done on the last couple of Super Bowls, to tell a story or give a nice intro and do something special for the race.

The goal is also to ensure that the AR elements feel organic, something the graphics team will be dialing in today and tomorrow ahead of race day. I think that approach is more interesting than just floating something in the sky, he says. Sometimes, there isn't the architecture, so you need to have the element float, but, if you can [tie it to a real-world architectural element] that is something we are trying to push. Here Camera 1 is about 340 ft. away from the pylon, but that gives us a wide shot where you feel the whole environment, the people, and the cars. It's a great backdrop for AR.

The FOX Sports HUD gives Indy Car fans more information about how drivers and the cars are performing.

The other big project that Fields and the team have been working on is a heads-up display (HUD) showing speed, position, gears, throttle, brake, and more during in-car shots from the 360 camera above the driver. Viewers can see the driver's head and hands on the steering wheel, and the HUD is layered in and appears to be part of the car.

We're trying to make that more dynamic and fit seamlessly, giving us a chance to give the viewer more data without getting in the way, says Fields. We have all the telemetry, and, because of where it's located,, it feels natural to the viewer.

The FOX Sports graphics team has also launched a ghost car with the help of SMT. The ghost car is currently being used in qualifying and gives viewers a better understanding of driver performance of the. Historically, watching qualifying on TV has involved watching a single car go around the track and comparing that driver's split times to the leader's split times. But the ghost car takes things to a new level, placing a ghost car of the leader's car on the track. Integrated with the in-car camera, it gives viewers a virtual representation of the lead car, making it much easier to see how far behind or ahead the car on the track is compared with the leader.

This weekend, the graphics team will be doing some testing with Mobii, looking to composite the HUD with the video in one stream as opposed to layering different streams together, the current workflow. It's an HTML-based solution that could give us a stream that could be used for the actual TV production, adds Fields. It makes it easier for the director to cut the show as well as mobile and web applications. We hope to have more of a POC by the end of next month.

The FOX Sports team has had three Indy Car Series races ahead of this weekend's main event, giving the production teams a chance to improve workflows.

We launched HUD in Week 1 and have made some small improvements, like cleaning up the design and the data that we've added to it, says Fields. It has been helpful to have those races, especially because we're dealing with new forms of data. But we're feeling really strong about where we are today.

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2025/05/23/live-from-the-indy-500-foxs-zac...
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