Water is critical to the existence of human life. Why do you think we spend so much time looking for it on other planets?
It is, however, less than desirable on a racetrack. Water gets between the tires and the track, which decreases friction. Decreased friction means lower speeds and higher probability of crashing. […]
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.) […]
Why Turning Fast is Hard If Isaac Newton had been a racing fan (which I’m sure Sir Isaac would have been if had cars been invented in the 1600’s), he might have stated one of […]
Martinsville is my favorite track and it has absolutely nothing to do with the hot dogs. Â It’s a short, flat track out in the middle of nowhere. Â It doesn’t have the high speeds and pack […]
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.) […]
As we head for Las Vegas this weekend, I thought I’d repost on of my most popular posts from stockcarscience.com on 3/5/2008 since the redirects for the old stockcarscience.com site don’t work reliably. The post is about Carl Edwards’ 2008 win at Las Vegas when the team was subsequently fined for having their oil tank cover lid askew at the end of the race. I have edited the post extensively, adding some new information and better graphics. […]
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, […]
One of the questions you’ll hear drivers and crew chiefs asked a lot this weekend at Dover is how the concrete track affects the racing. Here’s how: […]
I don’t know if they still make you do flowcharts in programming class, but I was trying to read through the Chase scenarios and I was getting really confused. So I did this. I think it’s much clearer now. To me, at least.
I bet I can get the other scenarios on here… Watch this space! […]
Four Hendrick Motorsports engines failed at Michigan International Speedway . But Michigan is hard on engines. Let’s see why. […]
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