The Building Speed Blog

Weather

Why Drying Tracks After Rain Takes So Long

2013-05-04 dr. diandra 2

Why does it takes so long for a track to dry? Why does humid weather make track drying take even longer?

Air is a mix of gas molecules: mostly (78%) nitrogen, about 21% oxygen, the rest misc. gases. The composition is pretty uniform with the exception of how much water is in the air. The absolute humidity is the amount of water in some chosen volume of air, for example, how much water vapor is in one cubic meter of air. Air can only hold so much water vapor and that amount depends on the temperature and pressure. Dry air would be no ounces of water in a cubic foot of air. If the vapor is saturated at 30 degrees centigrade (86 degrees Fahrenheit), then the amount of water could be up to three one-hundredths of an ounce of water per cubic foot. […]

Explosions

Why You Don’t Mess With Fuel Cell Foam

2013-04-26 dr. diandra 3

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.) […]

Bristol Motor Speedway

Why Turning is Hard

2013-04-20 dr. diandra 4

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 […]

Almquist, Kirk

Memories of Martinsville

2013-04-06 dr. diandra 2

Martinsville is my favorite track and it has absolutely nothing to do with the hot dogs.  It’s a short, flat track out in the middle of nowhere.  It doesn’t have the high speeds and pack […]

Auto Club Speedway of California

Making New Race Fans, One at a Time

2013-03-26 dr. diandra 3

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.) […]

Gen-6

Notes on Respect and Fines

2013-03-11 dr. diandra 7

A short note on Denny Hamlin’s comments on the Gen-6 car and subsequent fine.

I’ve talked to a lot of the people in the trenches involved in designing and creating the Gen-6 car. That includes people from manufacturers and teams. All of them have said that the development of the Gen-6 car is a major sea change for NASCAR. This is the most collaborative that NASCAR has been with introducing a new car in some time. Manufacturers and teams were consulted and they all feel that their opinions mattered and were taken into consideration. This was a very, very different process than the COT introduction, which was designed by NASCAR and plans delivered to teams. […]

Aerodynamic Forces

From the Lab Notebook: Las Vegas and the Mysteriously Missing Oil Tank Cover

2013-03-06 dr. diandra 1

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. […]

Aerodynamic Forces

Why Safety Takes Time

2013-03-01 dr. diandra 3

I suppose it’s really our own fault because of the way we teach science.

We give you labs constructed to get the right answer on the first try. We have you measure things you already know the value of. We tell you that things were invented by a single person on a specific date. […]

Aerodynamic Forces

Brief Thoughts on the Nationwide Accident at Daytona

2013-02-24 dr. diandra 4

We’ve been painting the house. I was straining to hear EPSN’s commentary over the swoosh-swish of the paint roller as the race came to a close – but it was all too easy to hear the change the tone of Allen Bestwick’s voice. We heard it recently from Marty Reid in Vegas. I remember the first-hand feeling sitting about 50 yards from Michael McDowell’s wreck during qualifying at Texas. A track full of race fans – all quiet – is one of the worst sounds in all of sports. […]

Center of Gravity

Did Danica Get the Daytona 500 Pole Because of Her Weight Advantage?

2013-02-20 dr. diandra 6

Did Danica Patrick win the Daytona 500 pole because she has a weight advantage? […]