You Can Run, but You Can't Hide

I learned something yesterday. If you spend 150 bucks at the beer store, you get a free T-shirt. I guess I went a little overboard. If anyone is in Charlotte and is jonesing for some good beers, check out Brawley's Beverage on South Blvd. (http://www.brawleysbeverage.com/) They have a superb selection (don't go there to buy Bud Light Lime, OK...they have it, but don't waste their time), and since my family is coming down next week, I wanted to make sure they drank well. So now you know where the rest of the THP store money is going..hehe..

It's winter time in the Carolinas, and the smell of the crisp air means that RG is switching manufacturers. To be fair, it seems obvious that Dodge is looking for an exit strategy, so moving to Toyota is probably a smart move. Good motors, good team support, and I'm sure I'll be bouncing some of thier cars on the 7 post in the coming year. I guess I couldn't avoid the 7 car forever.

Before I take a week off from the blog for Christmas, I wanted to shed some light on the work that needs to be done when you change manufacturers. The most obvious thing that needs to be changed (other than the sticker on the side of the hauler) is the body work. With the COT this is relatively easy. There are 2 nose peices that need to be switched out as well as the tail cover. The rest of the COT bodies are the same between makes, so all the side panels and roof can stay. In fact, all the tail peices are the same between makes too, but for some reason NASCAR insists that all the manufacturers have their own part number for it, so you have to switch that too. If you ever get close to a Cup car, you will see that there are 2 unpainted areas of the nose underneith the LF headlight, and one underneith the RR tail light. This is where the part numbers are stamped into the molds and NASCAR mandates that they be left unpainted so they can be teched. See blue circled region below.

When you switched manufacturers with the old car, the bodies were trickier. The noses were offset and bent around so bad that you usually had to replace alot more peices. Sometimes the amount that the nose was offset from center for maximum downforce was different between models, and then you really had to change alot of the guts. Now that the body shapes are the same it is no big deal.

The other big change is the motor. Obviously the general architecture of Cup motors is the same between makes. However, motor mounting and plumbing will be different. This usually means that each chassis has to go to hard-fab to get new motor mounts put in them. All of the oil lines need to be rerouted, and the cooling strategy and fittings might all be different as well. So each car will need atleast a few new oil and water lines made just to get the cars to fire up again. Basically it's alot of hours and headaches for the mechanics to sort out all the little issues.

From the engineering side, all of the simulation and analysis tools will be different, so there is some effort on that end to get calibrated to the support documentation from Toyota. From what I can tell, the Toyota tools are pretty good and there is a fair amount of sharing between teams. That is not to say that RG will get Kyle Busch's setup every week, but Toyota tries to share car info in a non-offensive way to get all the teams to run better.

It will be a challenge to get the cars sorted out for Daytona, but not as bad as last year with the change a week before the truck left. I look forward to seeing the 7 guys at my shop, and hopefully the change will be for the better.

Camber Tuna

I am proud to report 2 major achievements that were attained just today. The first was that I took tuna sandwiches to a whole new level. For lunch today I mixed cucumbers, onions, and feta cheese into my tuna with some mayo and plastered it on an onion bun with some muenster cheese...Brilliant...The other achievement of the day is probably more profound, but less tasty. I am pleased to announce that TheHotPass.com has taken $100 from THP store sales and donated it to the Jamie McMurray foundation that does work with Autism. So, again, I thank all of the current and former THP customers for making it such a success, and I hope to continue the spirit of giving in the future. I would have given to a Robby Gordon Foundation if one existed since it was mostly his shirts that allowed us to do this, but alas there is none. When he does, I will be one of the first to sign up. The only reason that I picked McMurrays is that he seemed like a nice guy when I met him at a test a couple of years ago, and since Robby punted him in one of the last couple of races, I thought he deserved it. I've heard Kyle Petty is a dick, and the Victory Junction Gang gets more money than god anyway, so I went a different route.

In today's techinical discussion, I want to talk about camber and its significance. Camber is the angle of the tires that you see when you look at a car from the front. If the tires are angled with the tires toward the middle of the car, this is negative camber and is referred to as "top in" in Cup lingo. If the tires are angled with the tops of the tires away from the car, the camber is positive or "top out". Here is a figure to help out with the definition.

Camber is a double edged sword. Dialling camber into the car gets the tires to generate lateral force which helps the car to turn better. However, when you run camber, the tire runs on a thinner contact patch and this can generate too much heat and cause the tires to wear out quicker or to fail. In general, for any random oval track, cup cars will run close to 8 degrees of positive camber on the LF (top towards the infield) and about 2-3 degrees of negative camber on the RF. In the rear, positive 2 on the LR and negative 2 on the RR is pretty normal. NASCAR rules say you can't run more than 8 degrees of camber on either of the front tires and no more than 2 on the rears. So, you can see that on all but the RF, the cars are maxed out. Also note that the tops of all the tires are pointed towards the infield to get the car to pull to the left. Now, it is less important where the camber starts and more important where it ends when the car is traveling in the corners. In cornering the RF will gain negative camber, so now instead of -2 degrees we might have -6 in the corner. On the LF the tire will lose camber in the corner and instead of 8 we might have 3 in the middle of the corner. The exact numbers depend on the geometry of the suspension. Even at full car travel all of the tires are still pointed toward the infield. Engineers on the teams spend alot of time looking at tire data to figure out the optimum camber to run for a given race, and they use this data to chose a suspension setup that will achieve the desired camber in the middle of the corner. Alot of times the RF tire will only want about 5-6 degrees in the middle of the corner before the contact patch becomes so small that it starts to lose grip.

Up until 1991 no one really paid attention to camber. Then Harry Gant started running a ton of rear camber and won 4 races in a row and almost a 5th when his brakes failed. Then the rest of the garage cought on and started bending camber into their rear axles too. Eventuallt the teams were taking it too far and there were axle failures every week due to the stress of too much camber in the drive train. NASCAR then came down with the 2 degree rule for the rear axle. The front is not so sensitive to camber induced failure so they still let them start with 8 degrees now.

It's Going to be a Bumpy Ride

I am pretty sure that I am finally getting caught back up in life after the Thanksgiving 30 hour driving weekend last week. What a nitemare. Two years ago I said I would never travel again for Thanksgiving, so i guess I lied to myself.

Anyway...Here are the final 2 weeks of the 25 Days of Robby Items. We'll get that wrapped up by the 19th so everyone can get their Christmas gifts.

It's the middle of the offseason now, and plans for 2009 are starting to be executed. All the teams are hard at work figuring out sponsorship (still) and trying to get a good peice for Daytona. The testing ban will be a releif for the mechanics as the Daytona testing in years past was so boring it was stupid. There were only 2 drafting sessions in the 3 days and in those you just crossed your fingers that you didn't get your car wadded up. Even though the banquet was boring (I heard) and there are no races, teams are still pounding away behind the scenes.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how a cup team goes about deciding what spring to use, and I want to revisit that topic a little bit. Before I talked about just the spring choice, and now I want to talk about how the bumpstops come into the equation.

In the early days of the COT, there were a few different configurations of bumpstops that people tried. Many of the teams at the first COT race ran chassis mounted bumpstops. These were a piece of rubber on the end of a screw to adjust the height. When the lower control arm of the suspension moved up it would hit it and stop the car from traveling. The other way was to mount some foam or rubber or whatever on the shock shaft. When I worked for RG, we were one of the only teams at the Bristol race with the shock mounted stops, and now everyone mounts them this way.

The purpose of the bumpstop is to stiffen the suspension in the last fraction of an inch of travel, so that you can run as soft of spring as possible and still keep the car from hitting the ground. For example, running a 400 lb spring in the RF would be desireable at say Chicago to keep the car low and the aero attitude right, but is too soft to keep the splitter from eating the track. So you put a bumpstop on that will make the RF spring feel like a 1500 lb spring for the last 1/4 inch of travel, and now you are good to go (theoretically). So you try to get all of the good benefits of running soft springs without hitting the ground.

Now...There are alot of ways to try to achieve this, and alot that I can't talk about. Speaking in general terms, probably the most common bumpstop is some kind of foam rubber that is stacked in some sort of aluminum can. There are hard plastic "packers" that can be slid in and out to adjust your "packer gap" which will determine at what shock travel the bumpstops engage and how far the car will travel. In 2007 people started coming out with aluminum canisters that could be charged with pressurized air to make a sort of airspring for the car to ride on. I think these were legal for all of about 7-8 races before NASCAR put an end to that. So there are always people that are pushing the envelope with bumpstop designs. The teams have had alot of time to work on them now, so they are becomign more and more refined. Here is a picture of some different foam/rubber peices that are sold for use as bumpstops.

I hope that helps demystify bumpstops somewhat. You can ask many of the smartest NASCAR people around what the best bumpstop curve looks like, and they can't tell you. In the end you just have to test stuff out at the track and see what feels good to the driver. Of course 7-posting can help get it sortof close (maybe) before you hit the track too.

Burning the Midnight Cacti

So we finally made it to the end of the season. The last race was a bit anti-climactic as the 48 was never really in danger of losing the championship, and the race for the 35th owners points position was not really all that close either. Congrats to the 7 car team for keeping their driver in the top 35 and the guaranteed spot in the Daytona 500. With a new year always brings renewed optimism, so 2009 could be happy hunting for the 7. Time will tell.

Before I delve any deeper, just wanted to post the next 10 of the 25 days of RG items that are available at stores.ebay.com/thehotpass. I am taking next week off of the blogging to go home for my HS reunion, so I won't have time to do a good blog. So here are the goods.

This week was the Baja 1000, and since I am late in posting, everyone knows that Robby's fate was not the desired result. Robby was nice enough to bring the cup team members to last years race. I was lucky enough to go on that trip, so I thought I would share a story from last years race.

This year the race was a loop, but last year it was a just a big drag race from Ensanada in the north to Cabo at the southern tip of the baja peninsula. It was cool, because we got to drive the whole length of the peninsula and the landscapes were mostly beautiful and ever changing. We stayed in Phoenix after the cup race and flew to Ensanada early Monday morning. We went through customs, and then to a hotel for a team breakfast and briefing. The race truck was taken through tech inspection in the afternoon, and the team was divided into groups. In my group were three of the cup guys that were given a 15 passenger van, and we drove in a convoy with one of the support trucks with about 3 of the baja team guys. The support truck was outfitted with spare tires, radiators, tools you name it. The support trucks basically blast out into the desert ahead of the race truck and setup a pit stop area. The first pit stop for my group was about 300 miles into the race, so we left that and drove a couple hours to a random motel in a dirty little Mexican town and stayed the night.

In the morning I coaxed the other cup guys to go to little cafe for breakfast, which was more like a shack with flies all over. We had some sort of taco dish and I definitly had Coke for breakfast. Then we drove to our first pit area, which took a couple of hours. We got to the area at 3 ish and Rob was supposed to be there at about 5. Being the engineer and having the strength of a 6 year old girl, I was given the job of being the jack person for the pit. (I was way too excited.) The other cup guys were tasked with changing tires since they are like 80lbs a piece. Normally they only change rear tires on the truck, so I was to jack the truck under the rear gear housing while the other guys did tires and fuel. We got all revved up for the stop, but then we got word that Rob wouldn't be there until 10, so we relaxed and had some dinner and made a fire with some dried up cacti. Pretty cool.

Obviously live timing and scoring is not really available on the Baja, so you only really know your running position by counting the cars ahead of you. It was dark when the first of the trucks went through, so everytime that we saw lights in the distance, we all grabbed our tools and hoped it was Rob. Frustratingly, Rob came into the pit about 40 minutes behind the first truck.

Doing the Baja pit stop was about the coolest thing I've ever done in racing. I was all nervous and revved up. The jack was a normal 2 ton floor jack...the heavy ones, so it was tough to throw it around. The truck pulled to a stop and I whipped the jack under the rear end, and I pumped it like crazy. It was a little sandy so the jack sunk a bit, which threw me, but I kept pumping. I finally got the truck the inch in the air it needed just ahead of the tire guys getting the nuts loose. They got the new tires on, the fuel guy finished, I dropped the jack, and the truck sped off into the night. 40 seconds of fury and adrenanline, and it was over.

We hurredly packed up the equipment and started off to the next pit. Unfortunately, the truck broke down with drive train problems just 10 miles from our pitstop. We did a quick u-turn and caught up to it. It was parked in a ditch, and the guys did a trans cooler change, and some creative rerouting of oil lines. An hour later, the truck belched forward and hurtled into the night again. Still hopped up from all of the action, we got back in the van and zinged away to the next pitstop, 200 miles away.

All Quiet on the Testing Front

My appologies for being so late again with the post. Being back in the working world is tough I guess. My appolgies for to the THP users for this being so Robby-centric, but Robby's is the only cup team I've ever worked on, so my oppinions have been shaped from my experiences there.

Want to get some buisness out of the way before I touch on some of the craziness that has gone down in nascar world this week. First of all, THP store has been so successful that we are are going to make a charitable donation to somewhere. There will be discussions this week as to which charity we are going to pick, but we will make an announcement before Thanksgiving. Secondly I would like to announce that starting on Monday the THP store will be inaugurating "The 25 days of Robby". Each weekday for the next 5 weeks, THP will be posting a different RG item on the THP store with a 'buy it now' price, so that you don't have to wait to have your presents shipped. The schedule is below and has thumbnails of the first weeks items.

Ok...So a wacky week in NASCAR. Obviously the DEI Ganassi merger was the biggest news, and unfortunately left one of my friends jobless. However, since this is an engineering discussion, the biggest news in the technical side of NASCAR was the testing ban that was announced on Friday. How is the testing ban going to shake up the grid next year and what does this mean for the teams week to week preparations are the two big questions in my mind.

I don't think the testing ban will shake up the grid. The bigger teams have been ramping up their simulation programs in the last bunch of years and they are getting to the point where they are reliable enough to unload with a decent setup. Every team that has won a race this year has spent a ton of money on simulation. Next year they will continue to do so, and will keep using it to win. Most of the small teams get simulation support, so they are not totally in the dark. At RGM we did simulation work a little bit, and it definitly helped about half of the time. However, you need a team of dedicated personell to babysit it and make it useful, so the less funded teams are still going to be at a disadvantage. You will also see 7-post testing become even more of a priority, as this will be one of the best ways to tune the car before the race. At the very least it will keep the teams from slamming the splitter on the ground off the truck.

On a week to week basis, it should make running a cup team less expensive without testing. Unfortunately, some of the cost savings will come from lost jobs for people who are on test teams. When a big team goes testing they send a whole different team of mechanics and engineers to the track, and just a couple of the race weekend people. So putting a car together for a test did not really mess up the flow of trying to get cars to the track. At smaller teams the race weekend people are the test people, so it is very draining, and takes time away from getting the car for the upcoming race prepared. So the big teams will cut some more jobs, and it will be buisness as usual for the small teams.

Last race of the year and in my mind, the points race for the top 35 is hotter than for the championship. Robby, Marcus Ambrose, and the 84 (Vickers this week) will be desperate to beat each other for the final guaranteed spot in the top 35 and a automatic qualification for the first 5 races next year. Robby is a bit ahead of the other 2 and I will pick him and the 84 to be in the top 35 at the end of day. Ambrose has had an awesome last couple of weeks, but I think the 84 withe Vickers will be too strong, and Rob will have the fire to make the last hurdle, and keep his team in buisness to fight again next year.

Spring in the Dessert

Most of the time I just write about food, but I figured I'd take a stab at writing something technical. But first, since I consider myself a tiny bit of a writer, I'd like to give a shout out to Michael Crighton who died this week. He obviously wrote Jurassic Park among other books, and produced E.R. (which I have never watched). I think Jurassic Park was the first book that I read twice. I was about 12 or 13 when that came out, so it was right up my alley. Then Jeff Gordon drove the Jurassic Park car, and it just couldn't get any better. I think my favorite video game for Super Ninetendo (besides Mario Kart) was the Jurassic Park game. I found an downloaded an emulator a few months ago and I was playing on the plane all the time when I still worked for Robby. I was obsessed with it. Anyway...I thought that Crighton was a cheesy writer, but then I heard a portion of an interview with him on NPR this morning and it changed my mind. He said something to the effect of "When I was in medical school everyone was taking notes about how to be a doctor and I was taking notes on how the doctors interacted." I effed that up, but bottom line, he was switched on and I can appreciate that.

Technical discussion starts now. I wanted to demystify one of the more basic setup choices for crew chiefs and engineers...spring selection. Sping choice is based on one of two things, aerodynamic attitude and/or mechanical grip. At 1 mile and under tracks (like Phoenix this week) the choice is mainly based on mechanical grip. The softer the springs (in general) the better mechanical grip you will have and the faster you will corner. At 1.5 mile and over, the springs are used to tune the aerodynamic attitude of the car, so heavier springs can be tollerated because the car will make more aerodynamic grip than mechanical grip. If the springs are too soft at a big track, the car will roll alot and it will result in less downforce.

The difference in rate between the left and the right side springs at an end of the car is important too. For example, if you run a 200 lb spring on the LF and an 800 lb spring on the RF, you have 600 lb of "spring split" and the car will want to push like crazy. Consequently if you run the same combo at the rear, the car will tend to be looser, all things being equal. So you have to test to work on how to get the car balanced and fast with the right spring combination.

So where do you start? Well, big teams will do alot of simulation to figure out what springs will yeild the most grip at a given track. Then they will go out and test and see if the driver feels a good balance around the spring rates that the computer spits out and you adjust from there. You can also go to the 7 post rig and run a lot of tests to figure out how much grip you can get without messing up the aero platform. Smaller teams just rely on past notes and experience and sortof wing it when they get to the race. All the crew cheifs have other crew chief friends that they can call and get a hot setup from, so in the end, most of the grid runs about the same spring combination on any given week. I believe the technical term is the "Garage 500"

So there you go. Spring 101.

Predictions for this week. Hendrick cars are bad fast at the shorter flat tracks like Phoenix. I'm going for a Dale Jr win this week. I don't think it's the 24's year, and the 99's streak has to end sometime. I think the 9 will get back on track and get a top 5. As for Robby, his head will be in Baja as it is next week, and he hasn't run good here in a COT yet, so I'll go for a 32nd 3 laps down.

The End is Near

All appolgies for the late post this week...I just spent 5 hours in line with the whole early voting deal, after a long night of Halloween partying, so I am a bit spent. Not as spent as the people who travel with the cup teams, though. It's a long season and the end is finally in sight. Usually there is a sense of relaxation that comes at the end of the season that is similar to the last day of school. However, I fear that the state of the economy and the knock on effect on some of the less frugal race teams will have many people in the garage fearful for their jobs. In other years, being fired in the off season probaly did not seem like a big deal, but with all the rumors swirling about mergers, and teams contracting or folding there will certainly less jobs in the garage for the people who do get fired or laid off. It's a tricky little buisness and everyday is like a job interview. Now more than ever.

Hmmmm...Texas...Texas was not particularly a favorite of mine. It is so hard to get in and out of the track, and the highways are so congested that it was more of a hassle than alot of the tracks. This track is in the same mold as Charlotte and Atlanta, so the drivers who were good there should be just fine this week as well. There have been nearly 20 mile and half track races this year, so there will be no surprises.

It looks like Robby is getting the backup car out for tommorrow, so the smiles from the heady finish of last week and the solid qualifying effort will be wiped from the memories of the mechanics as they scramble to get the backup ready. Earlier in the week I would have picked RG for a top 25 again, but I can't see the backup having the pace of the primary, so a mid thirties is more likely. The team is just about safe in the top 35 though, and they will be desperate to put the 00 and the 77 out of reach, so they will fight it to the end. As for the rest of the field, the 48 is still head and shoulders above, but Carl seems to be resurgent. I will pick the 24 for the win though with the 99 in P2. I'll take the 44 for a top ten.

TR Dizzles

After a quarter of a year and atleast 500 games of Mario Kart (Wii of course) I finally got off my ass and got a job. I am working for TRD as a seven post guru now. TRD just opened a new facility north of Charlotte to support Truck, Nationwide, and Cup teams (and Grand Am), and it's pretty nice. Basically, any Toyota team will be able to schedule time on the seven post or other test rigs in the facility, and it's my job to support them. So, now I have worked with or for every manufacturer in cup. Wooo hooo.

Hotlanta this week. It was not very hot in the spring, as I think it snowed the Saturday of the race weekend. The one thing that IS always hot at Atlanta is the restaurant "Ted's". It's owned by Ted Turner and he apparently slaughters buffalo on his ranch and serves the meat in the restaurants. There are very few ideas that have made my mouth water more. I prefer the blue cheese buffalo burger, but I think all of the menu is to die for. They also give you 'half sours' as appatizers, which are half dilled pickles...MMMMMMM

Obviously a miserable result for the 7 again last week, but I think Atlanta will a diamond in the rough. The banking there is similar to Charlotte, and rewards drivers who can hustle the car deep into the corners, which is obviously a trait of Robby's. Most of the teams will bring back the same car to the one they ran at Charlotte if it survived, and the setups won't be much different. It will be difficult for the 7 to crack the top 15 since all the chasers are brilliant at 1.5 mile tracks. For a podium I will go with the 83, 18 and 20 and a 21st for the 7...

Don't Choke on the Hot Dogs

On Wednesday I woke up at 5 in the morning, jumped in the Mini and headed north on I-77. I got off the highway and headed west on NC Rte 421, the Junior Johnson Highway. I blasted through the shadow of the old North Wilkesboro Speedway, and miles later found myself entering the Benny Parsons Highway. As romantic as this sounds, I wasn't looking for a passport to a bygone racing era or Junior Johnson's moonshine still. My destination was the Johnson County Tennessee Court house in Mountain City, TN. You see, the weekend I was fired from RGM, I decided to go take a leisurly romp through the Tennessee mountain roads to blow off some steam. Unfortunately, the Tennessee state troopers had anticipated our passage, and deemed that the drive was not so leisurely. So, I was forced into the courthouse to defend my honor. I headed home $507 less rich than when I arrived, but my name intact.

So, yeah....NASCAR. Martinsville is a sweet little track. A hark back to the good ole days of racing. The train tracks run parallel to the backstretch, the hotdogs are neon red and delicious, and how cool is getting a grandfather clock for winning the race? All of this and a setup of the car that is totally unique from anywhere else. The turns are so tight that teams will do anything to get the car to rotate in the corner. Alot of attention is paid to the rear end to get the rear axle to steer the car. Think monster truck rear steer, but not as pronounced. You will also see the front of the car rise on the straights and fall when the cars brake for the corners. On high speed tracks the teams will run stiff shocks to keep the car at an aerodynamically favorable positon. At M-Ville aero is a little less important and the softer shocks hold the road better and yeild more grip. Even if they let the nose fly a little. And don't forget that brake cooling and brake wear management is a priority for all the cars.

Predictions....I predict that RG will finish 33.8, because that is what his average is at M-Ville. Unfortunately, he does not qualify or finish well at this track. In the same way that I am bad at mountain biking, RG is bad at M-Ville. Sometimes it is just bad luck, but alot of times it was mechanical failures that were the achilles heel. Last fall, we had a bitchin' MAC tools paint scheme and had a fast car in happy hour. However, we qualified in the 30's, and we couldn't pass anyone in the race. A tire blew in the first 100 laps and that was game over. The 21 was pitted next to us, and Gene almost hit me in the head with a water bottle, when we pinned them in the pits. As far as the chase is concerned, I have no idea. The Hendrick pieces always run well, so expect the 24 and 48 to be up there all race. I also think the 20 will be in a podium spot when the 'ahem' smoke clears.

Chasing the Sun

So I was going to go over to Lowe's last night to watch qualifying and try to do some more networking, but it rained just enough to wash out the entire day. With Charlotte being the home track for alot of teams you usually see some small budget teams or new drivers in a 3rd or 4th team car try to qualify, and it's a shame that they didn't even have a chance yesterday. It will be sad when the franchising comes into play and you can't build a car in your garage and try to qualify. It is one of the more romantic aspects of the sport.

I digress (as usual). So, how do you prep for the race when a whole day of running has been washed out. In this case, not a whole lot. On Fridays many of the teams will work exclusivly on qualifying setups, so it is a wasted day for dialing the car in for race trim anyway. At RGM I would say about 80% of the time we would start making qualifying runs off the truck. I rarely thought this was a prudent approach, but it wasn't my tire bill either. It just seems to me that it would take 5-10 laps for a driver to remember his marks and get comfortable at the track again in the first practice. So if I was calling the shots I would put in q trim but open the grille and let the driver get settled in before you ask him to hustle the car in a true qualifying lap.

So...I don't think the rainout will have hurt anyone yesterday. It is bright and sunny as I look out the window, and both practices should be rain free. The first practice is at 5 so the track could be a little greasy still, but the second practic at 6:40 will be the one that you want to hone in on to see who is going to be fast. The race starts around 7 so the conditions (theoretically) will about what they will be at the start of the race. The one thing you don't want to do is get freaked out that the car is loose in practice and tighten the crap out of it, because the track will tighten up (usually) when the track cools and there is more grip.

Another topic you will hear alot about is tires. This family of tire that gets run here has the least grip of any tire on the circuit. So expect to see comments on the trackpass to the effect of "lacking overall grip".

Predictions...The 48, 99, and 16 are razor sharp, so expect them to battle tooth and nail. The 20 will be bouyant after cracking into the win column, but you can't really see the Home Depot car running for the win at Lowe's. The 11 is battered and bruised, so a top 25 is all i can see. The 18 hauled ass in the Allstar race in May with an experimental motor, but he always shines here. I'd put my bucks on the 18.

Take me out to lunch

So the Charlotte race is next week. If anyone from the Planet would like to take a peek at The Hot Pass store and buy some awesome gear first hand, or take me out to lunch and pick my brain about life, love or the pursuit of happiness, I will available.

I live 6 miles from the track, so I'd be happy to drop by your campsite as well.

Drop me a message if anyone wants to meet up.

Bored in Rural Alabama

Many of the fans in NASCAR land get really excited about Talladega, as the race is so action packed. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a snoozefest from an engineering point of view. The body rules are so tight that there is little room for development of an awesome low drag package. There are surely gains to be made by making adjustments to the underbody, but these are really hard to measure. One way that the well funded teams try to find these gains is by straight line testing. The install a bunch of sensors on the car and tow it to a big, long, flat stretch of road. Then they run the car up and down the road all day long, trying different peices or configurations, and try to assess drag decreases from the sensors. Obviously this is about as boring as it gets, but not every part of Cup racing is 100% exciting.

Ganassi has taken this concept to a higher level and they actually use an abandoned highway tunnel in rural Pennsylvania to do their straightline testing. This helps to keep the air conditions the same between runs, which is crucial when trying to decide what runs or peices are better. Testing in the middle of the desert is fine, but cross winds and temperature changes muddle the results.

The race event is usually pretty boring for the team guys too. You show up super early to get all of the superspeedway tech line stuff done, which takes ages. Then in practice you get like 2-3 runs and that is it. Then on Saturday, you go to the track for 12 hours just to do your 2 laps of qualifying. Historically RG's strategy has been to hang out in the back for the first half of the race, so qualifying is completely a waste of time. Then, for the race on Sunday, you hope you don't get wrecked and you wait for the last 100 miles for everyone to start racing. So..yeah...alot of down time, followed by 3 hours of nervousness.

Fortunately the infield is usually something special.

The Job Fair

First off, I just want to thank everyone out there who has supported "The Hot Pass" store. It has been fun to find and offer the official gear, and I hope you have had fun recieving the items. They are unique pieces, and I hope everyone that wears the stuff to the track feels like a little more of a badass that they circumvented the merchandise trailers and gotten the good shit. I have some great items on deck, so keep your eyes peeled. If anyone has requests for specific teams or sizes, send me a note and I can try to track it down.

So, unless you are an athelete or have some anomaly of the job world, you have been to a job fair. When I was in college they used to beg and plead for us to go as it was billed as having life changing potential. They encouraged us to dress up as if we were going to an interview, and indeed most of the kids got dolled up like they were on the way to the prom. Usually these events were held in some aweful stuffy place like a gymnasium, so it was a bit of a trip to blast through the doors of the job fair and smell the sweat soaked floors yet see everyone all dressed up and trying to network. I never felt right at these events, and just to be a jerk I would go to the job fair in a ratty sweatshirt and filthy jeans, grab some free pencils, and then go and do some more homework.

Luckily for me, the "job fair" (ahem....Charlotte test) was in town this week, and I zinged over to the speedway to get some face time with some of the people I've been soliciting for jobs. This may seem a little weird or something the common fan might not think of, but tests at Charlotte are notorious for bringing out the job hunters. Whether you have been in the buisness and have gotten launched, or are trying to break into the buisness, it is primetime to get your face seen and your resume in the right hands.

It was the first time I've been around a moving Cup car in a while (Chicago Race) and it felt good to be in the middle of the circus again. At the tests, the teams use both the Cup garage and the Nationwide garage. The top teams in points use the Cup garage, and the scrubs use the Nationwide garage. It doesn't mean anything really, but naturally I went into the Cup garage first. I stayed at the test for about an hour and a half and talked to a bunch of people and got a few more leads, so it was good.

I talked to the old boss RG too. He was quite excited about the new engines this week, so maybe he'll go and grab another decent finish.

Kansas is a bit of an anomoly. With Homestead, it is the one of the circuits that is visited only during the chase. The configuration and banking of the track are similar to Chicago, so it is not as if the crew chiefs and engineers are flying blind going there. Cars that have been running good at mile and half tracks all year should be just fine this week. I would expect to see 8-10 of the top spots held by chasers at the end of the day. Obviously it will be crucial for Robby to outrun the 00 and the 77 this week so as not to have to qualify on time for Talladega.

Pre Halloween Monster

Dover...One of the coolest tracks on the circuit in my mind. I was not very lucky at the nickel slots in June, but I still like Dover. You will notice on TV this weekend that there are bridges that cross over the track. One of the neatest experiences is walking out of the track on Saturday and watching the Nationwide cars zing off of turn two all pitched sideways as they dissappear under your feet.

The first Dover is always interesting for RGM as the Baja 500 is usually the same weekend, so he misses practice and qualifying. This year we had Matt Crafton in the car for practice and qualifying. I am not privy to the specific reason that he was chosen, but he did a fine job. From the perspective of the team members, the last thing you want a substitute driver to do is try to be a hero and wad the thing up. Since Robby doesn't qualify the car, you have to start last anyway,so why bother spending alot of time rebuilding a car if you don't have to, right? That being said, you have to run lap times that are competitive enough to tune the car around. We had tested with Matt Crafton at Nashville in the summer of 07, so Matt was familiar with Robby's cars, and he was decently quick at the test, so everyone on the team had faith that he would do a good job. It is really tough to try to make setup decisions for raceday based on Crafton's feedback, because we did not really have a baseline as to whether or not Robby and Matt like the same feel in the car. In the end it's a bit of a guess, but it worked out fine. Just an interesting quirk of the season that you have to deal with.

So...what to expect this week...My guess is that the 16 will be fast, because they were in the spring, and the win will have them swimming in confidence. As for the 7, it could be good or frustrating. The biggest handling problems usually happen when the car gets slammed into the banking at corner entry. Sometimes the car will be darty when this happens, and if that is the case, the confidence is not there to get back on the gas quickly, and you miss the apex of the corner. Getting the right toe setting to address this will be a key. Dover is really hard on the cars similar to Bristol, so weird things can break or rattle off the car. One of the races I did with Robby, a shock broke on the qualifying lap and screwed up the lap. So....you never know where the monster is lurking.

7 Is Lucky

In the same way that anyone has watched the slow decline of an addict, everyone on the planet has been waiting for rock bottom to hit and to start seeing some upward momentum. So, perhaps, the rainout on Friday was the breath of sunshine in the dark forest for the Robby faithful. We only had to qualify on time for the first 3 races that I was an employee in 2006 and we made all them. Each one was nervy and anytime you have to cut a lap, you have the chance to "trip on your dick" as they say in the garage. I'm sure Rob would've beat the 2 cars that he needed to, but you never know when something stupid can break or whatever, and it could've been a long trip home. So, maybe this is the turnaround.

So New Hampshire...All of my experience as a fan was at NHIS...I think I went to the 94 or 95 race back in the day. My dad and I slept in the back of the mini van in some random parking lot. It rained like hell, and the crazy's were out in full force all night with beer balls in the back of their golfcarts. I was way too young to have any comprehension of the awesome time in the mud everyone was having, but the memory stuck. I think that was the first race that Ernie Irvan won after he bonked his head. Then in 04 i was working at a normal job in New York state and I got some free tickets to go see the first ever chase race. Little did I know that I would be on the other side of the fence in 1.5 years. So NH has some good memories for me.

This column is supposed to deal with engineering issues, but not this week. Nothing in the world of engineering on a team that is as small as RGM is going to help when you get to your 3rd crew cheif of the year. I'm sure it's a game of wack-a-mole trying to deal with all the stupid shit that you need to do to get the car on the track. Besides, it's garage wisdom that the driver usually steps up the game for a new crew chief. So...look for Sunday to be a fight, but I dare say a top 20 is in the cards.

I leave you with a confession. I am relegated to drinking Evan Williams whiskey as its a bit lighter on my unemployment budget. So,so sorry.

Hurricane within a Hurricane

So it looks like weather will be a factor for the race this weekend, but there are enough challenges at Richmond sans hurricane, that it will be an interesting weekend. First of all the race is an impound, so there is only on practice, then qualifying and the race. You can change a few things like grille tape, trackbar, jackscrews, and other normal pitstopish adjustments between qualifying and the race, but that's it. So, it can be a miserable weekend if the car is not 90% of the way there off the truck. The second thing obviously is the battle for the final 7? spots for the chase. There is a saying in the garage that its alot easier to get points in March than it is in September, and this is so true. The reliability of the cars is excellent, so you are not going to be able to get a top 30 if the car is junk, because very few cars fall out of the races now. So, it makes it even harder to sneak a good result in the final 10-12 races for a non-chase car than it would be in the beginning of the year. It being a short track it is easy to go laps down, and once you go 2 laps down, your fate is pretty well sealed.

I have never had a good race or test at Richmond, even though Rob has won there in a Busch car. That one lonely trophy used to sit on top of the TV in the shop, and was the only peice of silverware to get inspired by while working. I think the first COT race there last spring was particularly miserable. We blew 2 RF tires in the first 30 laps of the race because it was rubbing on a brake hose, and then the swaybar arm broke, because it was rubbing on the track. By the time it got fixed we were 6-7 laps down, and it was 3 hours of running around close to last place, and trying to magical think the other cars to wreck. Pretty much not very fun.

So, I would expect a nervy race from just about the whole field. No one wants to wreck a chase contender, and there is a 6-7 car fight to stay in the top 35, so every lap will an adventure.

Double Double with Animal Fries, and a Vanilla Shake

Maybe I messed that up a little bit, but those are the first words out of about everyone's mouth on the cup circuit after you land in Fontana. In N Out is the unofficial burger joint of the cup series for all of the west coast races, and is usually the 1st stop if not the 2nd and 3rd stops for the team guys. Can't beat the fries there....mmmmm..mmm...I think the people who live in CA get a little knumb to In N Out, but it's like crack cocaine to the eastcoaster's.

I digress....So California race 2...This is the fourth race of the COT on a 2 mile D oval with medium banking. (1 other CA and two MI races). The tire combination for MI is not the same as CA, which I will never understand, but the tire for this week is the same as what was run in the CA in February. So, there are lots of team engineers pouring over the notes from those 3 races and trying to formulate a game plan. With all of that prior info (and don't forget that the cup series tested CA back in January) the setups should be alot better off the truck for most of the teams.

This race is known for it's long green flag runs and for the changing conditions as the race starts in the afternoon and runs into the night. The track usually tightens up as the sun goes down, so you could see some lead changes as some of the cars adjust themselves to the track better than others. The crew chiefs will certainly be thinking of how to get the car to work good in the sun so that you don't go a lap down early, but they will also be looking at ways to build adjustment into the car (with spring rubbers or air pressure) so that you are not out to lunch in the evening.

So...if you like passing, you better get a lot of beer, bc you will most likely be bored watching this one, However, if strategy is your deal and you like to be a backseat crewchief, there is plenty of strategy and changing conditions to wet your whistle.

Bristol...Back to where i(co)t all began..

So this week is the Bristol night race, which is obviously a fan favorite, and I think most of the team guys will tell you that short track Saturday night racing has a special appeal, considering thats where many of the guys cut their teeth.

This is obviously the same track that the COT debuted on, so the teams have had a fair amount of time to come up with decent setups. The first time we went to the race, it was a bit of a nitemare. It was the first time the COT had gone through the whole clam shell inspection process, and the teams had to show up on Thursday just to go through inspection before Friday practice. That, and we were worried about our bumpstops, and whether the car would slam the ground. I believe Rob finished about 10 laps down that first race, so to finish solidly on the lead lap last fall was a pretty good accomplishment.

Since the race is on Saturday, the only 2 practice sessions are on Friday, so having a good setup off the truck will be clutch. I would expect the top teams to work on race setups for half of the first session, then switch to qfy mode. A bad qfy run means you are way too close to being lapped in the first segment of the race.

From an engineering perspective, Bristol poses some interesting challenges. When the cars slam into the banking, they take about as much load as they will see at any track. So, there is always the chance that you will see some suspension failures that you would not normally. Choosing the right tire pressures can be a little tricky as forward bite is a concern, and the car is always braking and accelerating at higher rates than it would at Michigan for example. So it makes it tougher for the engineers to choose what tire loads to look at for their analysis.

Since the track got a new concrete surface last year, the racing there has changed slightly. The cars can run two wide through the corners, so there is less need for the 'bump and run' passing technique. This results in less wrecks, track position is more of a premium, and more pressure is put on the engineers, because fuel mileage has started to become and issue. In the fall race last year, we mananged to take a 30th place car and get it up to the lead with 100 to go with some interesting fuel strategy. I would expect the race to be pretty caution free, especially in the middle of the race since it is getting so close to the chase.

Bored on NASCAR Radio

So what does an unemployed NASCAR engineer do with themselves. They go on vacation. Last week I drove about 3000 miles round trip from Charlotte to Massachusetts to Wisconsin and back to visit friends and family. When I left on Monday morning I saw the last couple of haulers (20 and the 99) on their way back to their respective shops from Pocono. They were definitly in teardown after the race, so they were a little later than the rest. Then on the way home from Wiscnonsin on Wednesday I saw the 20 hauler headed out to Michigan...so the circus keeps on rolling.

I was in the car for the entirety of the WG race, which was good that it was on the radio to hear it atleast, but I would have rather watched it on TV as it is one of the more visually interesting races to watch. I was sorry to hear that Rob did so terribly. I obviously still have friends on the team and want them to do well, and I know the level of detail that goes into the road cars at RGM. I think they tested more for the road courses this year than ever before, so I don't know what happened. Obviously it could have been a very different week if the rain had not wiped out qualifying.

So on to Michigan...The 1.5 package had been working decent, so perhaps a good result is in the cards.

Pit Road Speed

Obviously pit stops and pit strategy get bathed in the spotlight when the circus goes to the roadcoarses. The basic idea is to get as good of fuel mileage as you can and be the first one to make your last pitstop. Of course for this to work well, you have to have a good pitstop and you have to have good pit in and pit out laps, so the pit road speed calculation becomes of paramount importance.

At the road courses ( and the 2 short tracks) the pit road speed is 35mph, which is impossibly slow. Most drivers will enter pit road in first gear since the speed is so low (2nd is normal everywhere else). So it is the engineers responsibility to use the gear ratios in the transmission, the rear gear ratio, and the tire diameter to figure out what engine rpm corresponds to 35 mph. This number is printed out and taped to the dash for Rob. Obviously the cars have no speedometer, but the tachometer (rpm gauge) is just as good. You will notice if you listen to the radio communication on trackpass that the pace car will actually travel at pitroad speed during one of the parade laps before the race. During this lap the driver can double check the pit road RPM calculation against what the engineers have calculated. The trick of this calculation is that NASCAR will not bust you for pit road speed unless you go 5mph over, so really the effective pit speed is 40mph. This is meant to protect the drivers from slightly overrevving, but savvy teams will use this to an advantage and push the envelope just a little bit.

Now, NASCAR checks pitroad speed at every track with 8 scoring loops that are usually evenly spaced every 6-8 spots on pit road. The signal goes through a little data box and shows up on some NASCAR officials screen (I assume) and the penalties are assed from there. Now, the engineers on each team will go out to pitroad on the Saturday before the race and locate all of the timing marks and give them to the crew cheif. The crew chief can use this information to pick a pit that is close to one of these marks so that one timing mark is effectively out of the question. You can speed between these marks, and there is no way for NASCAR to tell, so if you eliminate a timing mark by pitting close to one when the driver will be braking to pit, you eliminate a chance to get caught speeding.

Robby will probably qualify well, so they will probably pick pits based on other considerations, but this strategy helps on the ovals too.

Engineering Blog is Back

Welcome one and all back to the engineering blog....For those of you who don't know, I used to do one on the Uprising when I used to work as an engineer at RGM. I don't work there anymore, but the masses have spoken, so I am bringing it back.

Thought I'd start with a little diddy about tires since they were such an issue this week. The obvious question would be "How did they miss it so bad?" Unfortunately I have no idea. They obviously tire tested there, so it baffles me. I have been to one tire test in my career and they go a little something like this. It is usually a 2 day test with 3-4 different cars from different manufacturers. They are usually conducted at a circuit where there is a points race (as opposed to Milwaukee and Kentucky), so it is a valuable opportunity to put data acquisition on the car and learn some stuff at a track you will race at. That being said, Goodyear runs the test. You start the first day and make a couple of runs to make sure the car is ok and handles half way decent. You do this on a baseline set of tires. Then you put a new set of baseline tires on and make a long run. Then you come in and put another set on and make a long run. You do this until they run out of different compounds and constructions to test. Goodyear writes down driver comments and asses temperatures, and tire wear. After the test, I assume they use this data to pick the best tire that will last a fuel run and the driver will like.

A fuel run at Indy is probably 30-32 laps, so they were not even close. It would have been fun just to let them race instead of all the cautions. Some interesting strategies may have played out and perhaps a less obvious result would have been in order.

Off to get some beauty sleep now....Big offroad RC race tomorrow night.