2022
Fantasy Racing
Race Reports

Texas Race Report

A close finish, an underdog winner and tempers that matched the temperature. Here’s your Texas Race Report. I know it’s technically not spring, but it’s the first Texas race of the year. Since most of […]

Aerodynamics
Aerodynamics

Sciencing Out NASCAR Rules Changes

Rules changes in NASCAR are tricky.  There’s really no way to test them before implementing them. You’re relying on the judgement and experience of the NASCAR team, with input from race teams, drivers, Goodyear and […]

Aerodynamic Forces

Skirting the Issue

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. […]

Goodyear

The Kansas Monozone Tire

OK, so ‘monozone’ is just a fancy way of saying it’s the old tire.  It’s all in the branding, isn’t it? Goodyear has been experimenting with multi-zone tires since last year.  Multizone tires attempt to […]

Bristol Motor Speedway

The Reason for Decreasing Cautions

This was the first year that most people noticed a decrease in the number of cautions, but (as I’ve pointed out), 2012 is merely the latest in a six-year trend of decreasing cautions. The same downward trend is evident in the Nationwide Series. This year is perhaps notable for it being so extreme.

The data clearly shows the trend: The question, of course, is why?

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math
Cautions

Are Cautions Really Going Down?

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. […]