Lead
Ballast: Tungsten vs. Lead
NASCAR penalized a couple of teams recently for dropping tungsten ballast on the racetrack. Let’s revisit why those chunks of tungsten are there in the first place. Ballast is weight added to a racecar to […]
blog
Racing
Does the Driver Who Leads the Most Laps Usually Win?
We all remember at least a couple of times when a driver led the most laps without winning the race. But how often does that actually happen? As always, thanks to racing-reference.info for providing such […]
Climate Change
Why Use LED Lights at Martinsville?
Martinsville is the first motorsport facility in the US to install LED lighting. Let’s look at their system and see why they chose LEDs. […]
NASCAR XFINITY Series
Do XFINITY Champions Excel in Cup?
The NASCAR XFINITY series is the final challenge a driver must overcome before moving up to the Cup Series. So how do former XFINITY champions perform when they move up? Defining Our Dataset The currently […]
Practice
Does NASCAR Need Practices?
The COVID crisis has forced us to think outside the box. Three months ago, we wouldn’t have considered midweek races, racing without fans or racing without qualifying or practice. Now, those things are not only […]
Safety
Racing Against Coronavirus
The global coronavirus pandemic shut NASCAR down for two months. The racing at Darlington Raceway on May 17 won’t look like anything we’ve ever seen before. But will those precautions keep drivers, crews, and media […]
Cars
The Car of Tomorrow was not a Failure
Many NASCAR fans see the NextGen racecar as wiping away the last vestiges of the much-reviled Car of Tomorrow. But the CoT was far from a failure. You can bet your life — or your […]
Lasers
The Secret to iRacing’s Track Realism? LIDAR
The eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series is a welcome respite from a world transformed by coronavirus. Here’s how iRacing uses science to make the experience as much like real life as possible. If only the […]
2020 Rules Package
Did NASCAR’s Short-Track Package Solve its Short-Track Problem?
Although Sunday’s race at Phoenix was encouraging, one data point is not enough evidence to prove that NASCAR’s short-track package has solved its short-track problem. I guarantee you that the engineers at the NASCAR R&D […]
Air Titan
The Scientific Secrets of PJ1 Track Bite
NASCAR’s continued struggle to balance cost, safety and competitiveness led to using PJ1 Track Bite in 2017 at Bristol Motor Speedway. Since then it’s been used (mostly successfully) at other tracks. So what is it […]