Tracks

Safety

Transportable SAFER Barriers?

2015-03-26 dr. diandra 2

Joel asks:

Can racetracks work together to make interchangeable/transportable SAFER barriers? To clarify – could SMI or ISC tracks (politics, blah) standardize wall heights, angles, etc. so that they could use barriers at Michigan to fill in the critical areas and then move the necessary walls to Darlington or Homestead? Or even simpler – could the existing walls be setup to install barriers that could be moved from track to track? In the long term I know this is probably not the most cost effective solution. But in the short-term if there are supply problems or significant cost barriers, I thought this could help? […]

a scatter plot showing no correlation between starting and finishing positions in the Daytona 500 from 2012-2014
Graphs and Charts

Does Daytona Qualifying Really Matter?

2015-02-20 dr. diandra 6

Okay, it obviously does if you’re one of the cars that fails to make the race. But beyond that- given the huge amount of attention that’s been given to the ’embarrassment’ that was this year’s […]

Cautions

Did Drivers Drive Differently During the Chase? I: Lead Changes

2014-12-12 dr. diandra 5

The primary motivation for all the changes to the Chase format was to up the excitement factor – the “game seven moments” as NASCAR brass put it. While the fact of the matter is that […]

Aerodynamic Forces

Skirting the Issue

2014-11-07 dr. diandra 3

Flared side skirts became an issue when social media started noticing them somewhere around Kansas. The fact that the most obvious example of this was on the 2 car and Brad Keselowski is rapidly taking over from Kyle Busch as most-love-to-hate driver in NASCAR may have brought the issue to the fore faster. […]

Statistics

Can Anyone Really Win at Talladega?

2014-10-17 dr. diandra 4

Every year at this time, we hear that Talladega is a wild card because “Anyone can win”. Which, of course, made me wonder — can anyone win? […]

Aerodynamic Forces

2015 Rules: Track Records I – The Example of Charlotte

2014-10-03 dr. diandra 1

@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. […]

Pit Stops

Knowing Pit Road Speed in the Rain

2014-06-24 dr. diandra 0

This weekend, we learned that the real weather challenge for the NASCAR Nationwide Series isn’t rain. It’s not enough rain. It wasn’t raining hard enough to put on rain tires, but it wasn’t quite dry enough to safely race on slicks. (I’ve written before about why racing in the rain is hard.) But they managed to pull it off, put on a great show and @Brendan62 finally got that long-sought-after win. […]

Drivers

The Virtual Reality of Racing Simulators

2014-06-13 dr. diandra 3

You are hurtling down the frontstretch at Michigan, your speed approaching 215 mph. Your seat moves up and down as you hit the seams, but your focus is squarely on getting into Turn 1 losing as little speed as possible. You squeeze the brakes and feel yourself moving forward, only to realize that you’re still moving too quickly. As the car starts to head toward the wall, you panic and squeeze the brake even harder.
The car snaps loose and the next thing you feel… is an engineer’s hand on your shoulder. You turn around to see her barely suppressing a smile. […]

Aerodynamic Forces

Knowing the COSMOS doesn’t mean you know NASCAR

2014-05-28 dr. diandra 9

Everyone’s favorite “planet” killer had a spare hour because COSMOS was pre-empted Sunday by the Coca Cola 600.  Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson edified us with some “NASCAR physics”. There were 43 drivers who had no […]