While the website is reloading he can glance up at his television to the in-car camera telemetry that show his driver s engine RPMs before even the engine man knows in the pits, or the fan can monitor the video showing how smoothly the driver is shifting coming out of the pits. Cameras on the driver s feet show the fan how the driver works on a road course better than the driver could ever tell his team. But this new fan power isn t just limited to race weekends. Some fans are creeping into the media with amazing influence. Super fans start their own websites now, and have become just as powerful a force in the sport as the daily reporter with 25 years experience.
Technology allows anyone to act as a motorsports journalist now.
Nor does today s fan wait for hard news a month, a week, a day or even an hour after it happens. Within seconds of a press conference the fan has website reports and more often now tunes in to the actual press conferences live. In the old days, it was a chore to find out how his driver did, if he didn t win. Now even the 40th-place driver s website gives the fan all the particulars from a race weekend. Life is even easier for the modern fan.