The Building Speed Blog

Auto Club Speedway of California

A Band Aid for NASCAR’s Tire Bleeding Problem

2015-04-03 dr. diandra 2

There are three things you don’t mess with in NASCAR: engines, fuel and tires.

Tuesday, NASCAR handed down a P5 penalty – the penultimate penalty on the books – to Ryan Newman’s 31 team. Crew Chief Luke Lambert was suspended six races, fined $125,000, and Newman and his owner Richard Childress were each docked 75 points. The tire specialist and team engineer were suspended for six races as well. RCR is appealing the penalty, but I wager they’ve got an uphill battle.

NASCAR’s made its stand loud and clear in the last few weeks. Tire bleeding will not be allowed. If you persist in trying, they’ll come down hard on you. […]

Safety

The Science of Firesuits

2015-04-01 dr. diandra 7

If you were to poll racecar drivers about safety, I bet the majority of them would say the scariest situation isn’t a crash.

Two fears you have as a race car driver: one is being on fire and two is being T-boned in the driver door – everything else you sort of accept. –Elliott Sadler […]

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? […]

Computational Fluid Dynamics

Engine Rules Changes for 2015

2015-02-06 dr. diandra 5

There’s a lot of talk about all the rules changes for 2015. The limiting of the horsepower has been a hot topic of discussion, with people suggesting that NASCAR is basically mandating spec engines.  Here’s […]