Listen: Fan hacks teams' radio channels during Coca-Cola 600 and wreaks havoc
Perhaps no sport provides its followers with a better fan experience than NASCAR, but at the Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday, one fan went too far.
In the middle of the race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, at least three teams’ radio channels seem to have been hacked, allowing one fan (though it may have been two) to attempt to talk to the drivers, according to USA Today.
During races, NASCAR usually allows fans to tune in to their favorite driver’s team radio channel so as to better listen to what’s going on.
At the same time, fans are not supposed to be able to communicate with the drivers.
Earlier this week, NASCAR released a highlight reel of in-car audio clips from the Coca-Cola 600.
At around the 4:14 mark of the video below, an unidentified male voice can be heard asking Kyle Busch about the state of his tires.
WARNING: The following clip contains profane language that some viewers may find offensive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=195&v=Pd4PXc1KQhk
Following a rapid beeping, Busch’s crew chief, Adam Stevens, said, “Are you hearing that, KB?”
“Yeah 10-4. This is channel two now,” Busch responded.
“Just stay right there. I don’t know where we’re getting that from,” Stevens said.
At that point, an unidentified person said, “Hey, Kyle. How are your tires doing?”
An unknown voice was apparently also heard on Jamie McMurray’s teams channel, prompting the driver’s crew chief, Matt McCall, to say, “Get off the d— radio, whoever you are.”
Finally, following another series of rapid beeps on Alex Bowman’s team channel, an unknown voice was heard again.
“Hey, driver, shut the (expletive) up,” the voice said.
“If you can go to (channel) two, go to two. It’s obviously a fan calling out your name,” Bowman’s crew chief, Greg Ives, said in response.
After the race, Busch talked about the radio issues his team had been having.
“We experienced some interference. It was like a phone call, like somebody would key up the radio and it would dial a number and then it would go away. I don’t know what that was all about. We had it for about, I don’t know, one or two laps in the third stage, and then we had it for about eight laps in the final stage,” he said.
“And finally, I just had to shut that radio off, and then figure out where my backup was and get it turned on. That was the first time I’ve probably ever turned on my backup radio, so I was searching for it trying to find it,” he added. “It’s not so bright inside our cockpit, so it’s kind of hard to see with everything being black. Got it handled and was able to soldier on the rest of the day.”
Busch won the race, so the rogue fan obviously couldn’t have been too distracting.
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