Auto Club Speedway of California
Andy Randolph
Aerodynamic Forces
Busch, Kyle
Concussion

NASCAR’s Concussion Policy

Concussions were big news in a week where no one actually got one. NASCAR announced a new policy on concussions :  Starting in 2014, all drivers will be required to have a baseline test at […]

Consipracies

Opinion: NASCAR’s Restart Problem – What Would Einstein Do?

Sigh. So instead of talking about a couple great races this week, we’re focusing on restarts.  Again.  Everyone, from pundits to drivers, is questioning  NASCAR’s decisions to not call penalties on the critical restarts of […]

Busch, Kyle

Do Drivers Slow Down When They Get Older?

NOTE: I’ve revisited this topic in a more-recent blog that has additional data. I’d encourage you to look there, as well There are a lot of things people say in NASCAR that have been said […]

Aerodynamic Forces

The Flap over Roof Flaps

Why Roof Flaps? Roof flaps (the invention of which I detail in my book The Physics of NASCAR) help keep cars on the ground.  This is necessary because of Bernoulli’s law, which says basically that: Faster-moving […]

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 […]

Explosions

Why You Don’t Mess With Fuel Cell Foam

We’d been hearing rumors of penalties stemming from Kansas and everyone expected them to be announced Tuesday. Since penalties usually have some scientific component, I was sort of hoping for some new material. Tuesday came and went. Nothing. Wednesday, all heck broke loose as penalties were announced for the No 20 JGR car (engine issues) and the No 98 ThorSport truck.
The more interesting — and less discussed — penalty is the ThorSport/Johnny Sauter one. (It was a tough week for Wisconsin drivers). The team was docked 25 points, which is pretty huge for the Truck Series and the crew chief fined $10,000. (I realize that seems small when compared to the Sprint Cup Series penalties, but the Truck Series has correspondingly lower purses and salaries.) […]