USAC Officials Use OS/2 Warp

THE WOMEN OF INDY GET "WARPED": IBM SOFTWARE HELPS RUN 1995 INDIANAPOLIS
500

INDIANAPOLIS, May 13, 1995 . . . Ann Grobe, Lisa Lengerich, Veronica Frost,
Pat Johnson and Georgette Bundrant are just five of more than 450 USAC
officials who depend on OS/2 Warp and a wide range of IBM PC software and
hardware products to help time, score and officiate the Indianapolis 500.
The technology they use influences who gets to race and how the drivers
and pit crews prepare their machines and strategies for track conditions.

No car gets on the racetrack until Ann Grobe says so. As vice chairman of
technical data for the United States Auto Club (USAC), the sanctioning
body for the Indianapolis 500, Grobe issues the technical inspection
sticker that every car must have before being allowed to qualify for the
race.

"If the car doesn't meet USAC tech specs, then we hold up the big stop
sign," said Grobe, an Honor, MI, resident, who has 15 years' experience
with the USAC Technical Crew.

The crew makes sure that the race cars are safe and equally matched. Grobe
inputs all of the technical data for each car into an IBM OS/2- and DB2
for OS/2-based database management system called the Integrated Race
Information Systems (IRIS). The IRIS system is a collection of
USAC-written client/server application programs running on an IBM local
area network under OS/2 LAN Server. The IRIS system serves as USAC's own
information superhighway at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

In support of the race, IRIS has an administrative function and a
performance function. The administrative function stores information on
competitors, cars and sponsors in the race, while the performance function
collects and stores timing and scoring data from transmitters on the race
cars.

USAC uses IRIS to distribute information from the OS/2 server among a
number of client PCs running OS/2 Warp, making it possible for workers in
three different USAC departments to share racing data for their various
missions. Grobe, who helped USAC and IBM programmers develop the IRIS
system in 1991-92, said she is impressed with the power and speed of OS/2
Warp over previous versions of OS/2.

"Just the short time I have been using OS/2 Warp here has convinced me to
buy a computer loaded with it for my home," she said.

Scoring technicians Lisa Lengerich and Veronica Frost, who work in Indy's
Gasoline Alley, also use the LAN so they can supply race teams with
detailed performance reports during the weeks of practice, qualification
and the race. The reports provide teams with car lap times, corner speeds
and other in-depth information generated by transmitters on the cars,
which communicate with the IMS/USAC timing system via a series of antennas
embedded in the track.

Before they had the multitasking capabilities of OS/2 Warp and the power of
DB2 for OS/2, USAC officials could only print these reports at the end of
the day, which wasn't very valuable for the teams. The teams need their
reports as quickly as possible, Frost explained. "Using OS/2 Warp, we can
now run those reports off the LAN anytime. Soon the teams may be able to
get their reports real-time using laptop computers in the pits."

Assistant Chief Observer Pat Johnson, of Dallas, TX, and Assistant Observer
Georgette Bundrant, of Indianapolis, said they act as "court reporters"
for the observer crew. They sit on the top floor of the Speedway's control
tower with radio contact to 15 observer stations located around the track.
From their post, Johnson and Bundrant communicate with each observer and
use an OS/2 Warp-based PC to prepare vital reports for the track crews.

Bundrant said they monitor reports on track conditions, debris on the
track, cars slowing down on the track, and alert the crews ahead of time.
"OS/2 Warp allows us to open multiple reports at once, so we can print a
report and write a current one at the same time without hanging up the
system," she said. "These reports are mission-critical. The track stewards
rely on our reports to make split-second decisions that affect safety. We
can't afford a system crash."

OS/2 Warp is the third generation of IBM's award-winning 32-bit operating
system. It features impressive new usability features, slimmed-down system
requirements and comes with a BonusPak of more than a dozen exploitive
OS/2 applications, including easy access to the Internet and CompuServe.
OS/2 Warp comes preloaded on systems from the IBM PC Company, Toshiba,
Vobis, Escom, and Osborne. Dell and CompuAdd offer OS/2 Warp as a preload
option to customers when they order PCs.

IRIS in this context is the acronym for Integrated Race Information
Systems, a collection of proprietary USAC Timing & Scoring programs used
only at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

IBM news releases are available on the Internet via the IBM Home Page at
http://www.ibm.com.

The IBM Fax Information Service allows you to receive facsimiles of prior
IBM product press releases. Dial 1-800-IBM-4FAX and enter "99" at the
voice menu.

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