By T.J. Buffenbarger
The 2016 Chili Bowl Nationals C through A features on Saturday night have appeared live on MAVtv for several years. Lucas Oil is taking their involvement one step further this year by using the Chili Bowl to launch their new online streaming project, LucasOilRacing.tv, showing the same broadcast that is being seen live on MAVtv.
Using one of the largest Motorsports events that stands alone in January might seem ambitious to launch a new streaming service. In a short amount of time though LucasOilRacing.tv has stood up a large scale infrastructure to handle the onslaught of live racing coverage. Distributed servers, satellites, and a streaming engine to convert the HD signal into various feeds and formats with bit rates that adapt so the stream will work with a variety of devices. Throw in a large scan contend delivery network to distribute those streams and LucasOilRacing.tv has built up the largest infrastructure for short track racing live stream we have seen.
LucasRacingOil.tv’s Multimedia Director Dave Wosner is excited to use this technology to bring the great programming that Lucas Oil and MAVtv have been producing to the live streaming format.
“What really makes our service stand out is the live racing quality that we will be bringing to fans all over the world,” said Wosner. “We have been producing high quality racing shows for over a decade and we are taking that experience and hitting the gas. Fans will be able to see a large number of our races broadcast live and many more with a slight delay. That means instead of waiting two weeks to a month to see a race, you’ll see it live or in a matter of days. “
Along with the Chili Bowl, LucasOilRacing.tv had a large selection of videos ready for launch day with more coming as the project progresses.
“We currently have over 750 videos up on our service and are adding more every day. By Monday we should have over 900. We still have additional titles that will be added to our service. They will all be adding new episodes as they are produced. Some of the series will also have content that hits Lucas Oil Racing TV prior to its debut on traditional television. As an example, we have our ‘Inside Line’ cuts of races from the recent Tulsa Shootout that are up on the service and the fully produced version of the Tulsa Shootout will be available shortly. “
The Chili Bowl is just the start of live racing for LucasOilRacing.tv Wosner indicated there are some big late model races this winter on the way as well.
“We are still working on finalizing our schedules and determining which races will be shown live. However, right now I can tell you that in February we are going to do five days of live Late Model Dirt Series races; specifically, 3 days at Golden Isles, the final day at the East Bay Winter Nationals as well as a newly added race at Bubba Raceway park the following day.”