Goodyear and NASCAR use RFID tags to track racing tires

Asset management is a growing market for radio frequency identification (RFID) technology.

By Corinne Kator, Associate Editor -- Modern Materials Handling, 10/18/2007

When NASCAR cars and trucks hit the racetrack for the 2008 season, they’ll be outfitted with Goodyear tires imbedded with passive UHF RFID tags. The unique ID numbers in the RFID tags will help Goodyear keep track of the thousands of tires it leases to NASCAR racing teams, and they’ll also help NASCAR track down any racers who’ve illegally tampered with their tires.

Goodyear’s investment is one example of the growing market for RFID tags used to manage high-value assets.

Dan Finch, president and CEO of Advanced ID, the company providing RFID tags to Goodyear and NASCAR, says tracking high-value tires is an excellent application for RFID technology. He believes, for example, that RFID tags will eventually be added to all large truck tires to fight theft and counterfeiting.

Tire tags aren’t cheap, Finch says. While other passive RFID tags cost 12 to 20 cents, a tire tag costs about $1, he says. Tire tags use particularly expensive wire antennas, they must be imbedded in the tire during manufacturing or added later with a special rubber patch, and, obviously, they must be more rugged than simple tags placed on cartons shipped to Wal-Mart.

But the extra cost is worth it, Finch says, in the right applications. An extra dollar might be justifiable, for example, for a manufacturer that wants to avoid honoring warrantees on counterfeit truck tires. The ability to monitor the way racing teams use their tires has clearly been worth the investment for Goodyear and NASCAR; they’ve just invested in the technology for the third season.