grip
Grip: How NASCAR Decides If There’s Enough
Without grip — aka ‘friction’ — there is no racing. But how do you know how much grip a racetrack has? The primary tool for tuning racing grip is the tire. Goodyear produces different tire […]
The Building Speed Blog
Bristol Motor Speedway
How Power Steering Affects Lap Times
Brad Keselowski lost his power steering early in Stage 3 of the fall Bristol race. I wondered if we could quantify how much power steering affects lap times. Turns out we can. Below is a […]
Bristol Motor Speedway
Bristol Driver Stats: Fall
Every race in the playoffs is critical, but the elimination races, like this week’s Bristol race, are even more critical. How do drivers do in the fall races at Bristol? Here’s your Bristol Driver Stats. […]
Safety
How NASCAR Drivers Keep Cool
It’s critical for NASCAR drivers to keep their cool — mentally and physically. That’s not easy when the interior of the car can easily reach 120ºF to 130ºF. So how do NASCAR drivers keep their […]
Race Reports
Darlington: This is What Heartbreak Looks like in a Graph
Martin Truex, Jr. just can’t catch a break this year. Take a look at the Lead-O-Gram for the Darlington race. Chase Elliott and Truex, Jr. held the lead for most of the race — the […]
Race Reports
Dover Race Report
Last weekend at Dover provides a great example of how two races at the same track and within twenty-four hours of each other, can turn out very different. Dover Lead-O-Gram I like the Lead-O-Gram because […]
Practice
Which Drivers Improve their Finishing Positions in Doubleheaders?
How has eliminating practices affected finishing positions in NASCAR races? Unfortunately, we can’t create a parallel, COVID-free universe as a control system to answer the question. However, COVID has forced NASCAR to run four weekends […]
Qualifying
Why NASCAR Quarantine Qualifying Had To Change
My return to the unique problems posed by quarantine qualifying is in part because Clint Bowyer tweeted that the pseudo-random draw was really messing him up and it wasn’t fair. I wanted to know if […]
Race Reports
Loudon Lead Changes
In reviewing the stats from Sunday’s race, the things that stood out to me all had to do with lead changes. Here’s the New Hampshire Motor Speedway race report. Lead-O-Gram The lead-o-gram show the dominance […]
Safety
Is Stockcar Racing the Safest Form of Motorsports?
None of NASCAR’s three national series have had a driver die in an on-track incident since the 2001 death of Dale Earnhardt, Sr. And that’s despite some pretty spectacular accidents. We all wondered if we […]