Asphalt
Thermography: A New Weapon in the NASCAR Arsenal
What’s Wrong With this Cow? Can you tell? If you said the cow is the wrong color, you’re close. But there’s more to the story. And What’s That Got to Do with NASCAR? Competition in […]
Tracks
Aerodynamics
Composite Race Car Bodies
You Never Forget Your First One My first car was a greenish-brown 1969 Buick LeSabre with a 123-inch wheel base and a 230-horsepower two-barrel V-8. That puppy weighed about 4200 lbs and taught me everything […]
Energy
Pocono Raceway Solar Farm: Sheep Power
People often point to NASCAR as being an environmentally unredeemable sport because it involves cars burning gasoline. For some reason, people looking for an easy answer like to suggest that NASCAR turn to electric cars and that […]
Charlotte Motor Speedway
Did the All-Star Race Kill the Idea of Two Types of Tires in NASCAR for Good?
Not even the most talented publicity person could convince NASCAR fans that the idea of giving teams a choice of a ‘soft’ tire and a ‘regular’ tire was a good idea based on the sole […]
Graphs and Charts
Are Posted Lap Speeds Really Accurate?
After every practice and qualifying session, NASCAR puts out one or more sheets of paper that look like this: This tells you who went how fast qualifying at Atlanta a couple weeks ago. I only included the […]
Graphs and Charts
Reverse Engineering NASCAR Stage Lengths
Stage Racing The 2017 NASCAR season brought us stage racing: Segmenting a race into three parts, each of which has a winner (and point reward). If you’re me, the first thing you wondered was not […]
Bristol Motor Speedway
The Proposal to Muffle NASCAR Race Cars
Last week, Adam Stern broke a story that NASCAR is considering 15 to 20 potential changes that would help increase the fan base. They’ve already implemented race segments and we’ve heard talk about shortening race […]
Bristol Motor Speedway
Will Tire Limits Improve Racing?
Will 2017 Tire Limit Rules Require Harder Tires? Back in the day, the only thing that limited how many sets of tires you could use in Cup-level racing was your budget. It was different in […]
Acceleration
How is a NASCAR Driver at Bristol like an Astronaut?
The Unique Challenges of Bristol Many drivers will tell you that, despite not having the highest speeds or a unique shape, or a long race time, Bristol is one of the most exhausting stops on […]
Asphalt
How Tracks Take and Lose Rubber
The two words we heard most frequently last week in Pocono (after “still raining”) were “green racetrack”. Rain doesn’t just delay racing. When the race is finally run after a rain delay, it’s run on […]