Aerodynamic Forces

2015 Rules: Track Records I – The Example of Charlotte

@NASCARRealTime, @TheOrangeCone and @CircleTrackNerd had an interesting dialog when the 2015 rules were announced. They were debating whether the track records that are now standing are going to be essentially locked into history. The debate ended with an appeal to me and Goody’s Headache Powder. […]

Brakes

The Zen of Brake Bias II

In the last blog entry, I explained what brake bias was and how it could be used to improve the car’s handling during green-flag runs. This time, let’s look under the hood (or I guess, more accurately, under the dash) and see how this is accomplished. […]

Brakes

The Zen of Brake Bias

With all the talk about giving the drivers the ability to change aspects of the setup from within the car, I thought some comments on what types of changes they can make would be appropriate. […]

Aerodynamic Forces

Dive! Dive! Dive Planes… on Stock Cars?

A persistent motorsports issue (and not only with stock cars) is the aerodynamic passing problem. You can’t pass without grip. Grip is a direct result of downforce. Downforce comes from two places: the weight of the car (mechanical grip) and the billions and billions of air molecules hitting the car (a.k.a aerogrip). […]

Andy Randolph
Aerodynamic Forces
DNFs

Toyota Engines: By The Numbers

There are somewhere in the vicinity of 840 parts in a NASCAR Sprint Cup Engine (at least the Chevy version and yes, I am taking someone’s word for this.  I did not have time to […]

Engines

Eliminating Restrictor Plates?

Every return to a restrictor plate track brings suggestions about how we might eliminate the restrictor plate. Restrictor plates serve the very necessary function of limiting car speeds at Daytona and Talladega so that the cars stay on the ground. The negative is that they remove throttle response. One suggestion from some readers that I hadn’t heard of before suggested that NASCAR could just change the rear-end gearing parameters to shift the power curve and reduce horsepower that way. Will that work? […]

Engines
Building Cars

Glass Cockpits

When I first saw on twitter that Brian France had said NASCAR was looking at “glass cockpits” for the future, I was a little mystified.  (You can see exactly what he said on @nateryan’s twitter […]