Notes on Respect and Fines
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...
View ArticleWhy You Don’t Mess With Fuel Cell Foam
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...
View ArticleThe Flap over Roof Flaps
Why Roof Flaps? Roof flaps (the invention of which I detail in my book The Physics of NASCAR) help keep cars on the ground. This is necessary because of Bernoulli’s law, which says basically that:...
View ArticleA Band Aid for NASCAR’s Tire Bleeding Problem
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...
View ArticleNASCAR Drivers’ Risky Behavior and the Peltzman Effect
The introduction of automotive safety innovations is usually accompanied by concern about the side-effects of those innovations. For example, when seat belts were introduced, people worried that the...
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