Saturday’s race in Richmond was a festival of miscues. Carl Edwards mistakenly thought he was leading, then he jumped the restart, although he wasn’t the one to lead the restart because he wasn’t the leader. One would think we have the data that could prevent incidents like this. We probably do. But do we want to use it? […]
Being the data geek that I am, I was really curious if the decreasing number of cautions was specific to this year. It’s not: Cautions have been decreasing since 2005,as the graph below shows. The squares are the cumulative number of cautions per 100 miles, obtained by adding up all the cautions in a season and dividing by the total number of miles in the races. (This is a more accurate number than total cautions, given rainouts, shortening races and different venues from year to year.) […]
I honestly cannot help it – scientists are naturally skeptical. If you make an assertion, I will have to question you on what data you have that supports it. This is second nature to the people I work with, but I realize it is damned irritating to non-scientists (aka “normal”) people.
So when I started reading everywhere that “cautions were down 35%”, I had to go look into it. This is a preliminary post – more detailed analysis will follow as soon as I’ve read my students’ final projects and gotten comments back to them. […]
As we turn on the (new) engines to start the season, the twitterverse is getting even more full of people debating the NASCAR EFI system. Is it like the EFI in production cars? Is it throttle body? Is it multiport? Here are the answers: […]
The short answer: Carbs suck and EFI squirts.
The long answer can be found in the video that follows. […]
I was watching the movie A Clockwork Orange the other night. There is a scene where Malcolm McDowell, having been “rehabilitated” and returned to society incapable of defending himself, is being beat up by an […]
The whole RCR appeals process raised more questions than it answered. The RCR appeal is dead: Here’s the issue now. John Middlebrook, NASCAR’s chief appellate officer, will hear RCR’s (final) appeal tomorrow. He has a major advantage in that he can pretty much run the appeal however he wants. If I were in Mr. Middlebrook’s shoes, here’s what I’d do. […]
Here’s the fast analysis of the statement from NASCAR upholding the penalties on the 33-car from New Hampshire. More will follow after proper digestion and reflection. This is an interpretation of the penalty upholding statement (as reported by Jeff Gluck) because that’s the first tweet I saw. The panel’s statements are in italics and my interpretation in non-italics. […]
The 5 car got sent to the back for the start of the race last Sunday at Dover after qualifying third when their shocks didn’t clear post-qualifying inspection. Shocks and springs work together to control the rate at which the body of the car moves. The ideal attitude is the hound dog position: nose down, tail up, as demonstrated in the photo at right by my capable assistant Darwin. That position prevents air from getting underneath the car and it sticks the spoiler up in the air as much as possible, which means that more air hits it and creates more downforce. […]
After being a non-event (The 33 car from Richmond was “just barely legal” and NASCAR was checking with RCR to make sure they didn’t have a mistake on their build sheet) for a couple of days, the situation changed today when a 150-point, $150,000, 6-week crew chief/car chief suspension was announced based on violations from the New Hampshire car. […]
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