2022
2022 Fontana Report
The 2022 Fontana report highlights the closest race since 2011, and the most caution/accident-filled race ever. […]
Auto Club Speedway of California
Auto Club Speedway of California
The Trouble with Pit Road Walls
Brandon Jones hit the edge of the pit road wall during Saturday’s XFINITY race, prompting a lot of people to ask if sand barrels are the best we can do in terms of safety. […]
Auto Club Speedway of California
2021 NASCAR Preview: ‘Other’ Tracks
Fontana (the old Fontana), Pocono, Indy and Michigan are larger than intermediate tracks, but not superspeedways. The number of such tracks is going way down in 2021, which means that drivers who did well at […]
Auto Club Speedway of California
Driving Concussed
Driving Concussed This week brings the return of Jeff Gordon to the track, but under conditions I’m sure all of us wish were otherwise. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. is out again (and will be next week) […]
Auto Club Speedway of California
A Band Aid for NASCAR’s Tire Bleeding Problem
There are three things you don’t mess with in NASCAR: engines, fuel and tires.
Tuesday, NASCAR handed down a P5 penalty – the penultimate penalty on the books – to Ryan Newman’s 31 team. Crew Chief Luke Lambert was suspended six races, fined $125,000, and Newman and his owner Richard Childress were each docked 75 points. The tire specialist and team engineer were suspended for six races as well. RCR is appealing the penalty, but I wager they’ve got an uphill battle.
NASCAR’s made its stand loud and clear in the last few weeks. Tire bleeding will not be allowed. If you persist in trying, they’ll come down hard on you. […]
Auto Club Speedway of California
California: The Good, the Bumpy and the Frustrated
I know this isn’t a picture of California. But it’s a picture out my window, which is why this is a sort of short post. There seems to be a clear division between the people […]
Auto Club Speedway of California
Making New Race Fans, One at a Time
I got a call out of the blue in the office yesterday. A biomedical physicist/radiation oncologist from UC-Irvine who had just gone to his first NASCAR race at Auto Club Speedway had a question about my book, The Physics of NASCAR (which, by the way, you don’t have to be a physicist to read. In fact, it’s probably better if you’re not.) […]
Auto Club Speedway of California
Degrees of Difference: How is Martinsville like Fontana?
I love getting questions from readers because I always worry that the geeky stuff I find interesting is only interesting to me. I love it even more when they not only give me a question, […]