Congrats to TOG for all of the great Dakar coverage this year. I know he works tirelessly to bring the story to the RG fans and it was very comprehensive. Welcome all of you who have signed up for the planet in droves in the last couple of months. Obviously the shout out from Jayski has brought a lot of you here, and I welcome you all to the discussion.
I just wanted to reintroduce myself for those who do not know who I am or why my blog is featured on the planet. I used to be an engineer for RGM from 2006 until I got fired last summer. I went to a bunch of races, lived the dream, and learned a lot about racing and the silliness of the buisness. I now work for Toyota running a 7 post machine as support for Toyota's NASCAR operations. I write the blog to give a little bit of insight into the technical side of the sport and some of the interesting cercumstances that arise when 200 (mostly guys) get together every week to race a bunch of taxi cabs.
There is a weird vibe in the NASCAR world just at the moment. Normally this is the weekend between the two Daytona tests. You used to come back from xmas break and scramble like crazy to put the finishing touches on the two test cars. The finish fab people would be hastily epoxying the windshields and making the quarter window braces. The body people would be staying late and working wierd hours to bondo the underside of the cars just right, and the engineers would be scrambling to get the data systems tuned up and calibrated. The payoff was always this cathartic moment when the first test car was pushed outside the shop and the metallic grinding of the starter provided a momentary preamble to the first engine of the year turning over and rumbling to life. There is something a bit sweet about the toxic exhaust scent that makes all the hours seem worth while when it finally hits your nose.
However, the NASCAR community is just a bit lost with the upset in the normal ruitine. There is a little bit of relief just because the tests were so boring. But there is also a little bit of panic that the first run of the year for a lot of drivers, or driver crew chief combinations is going to be at the big show. Everyone wants the season to start well, and the Daytona test allowed you to make some stupid mistakes before the curtain goes up at the 500.
Don't let the media fool you. Teams are still testing. But it will not feel real until they drive through the turn 4 tunnel and into the shadows of Lake Lloyd in just 3 short weeks.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Testing is soooo 2008
I was having some dinner at Outback last night and I saw the first commercials of the year for the Daytona 500. I pointed them out to my friends and they laughed at me and told me that had been on for atleast a week. Even so, it is getting close enough that you can almost smell it, can't you. Apparently there is still going to be a Pre-Season thunder event at Daytona this year, but no fan that is interested in the racing more than the soap opera will go (I hope). With no testing going on, it will merely be a an autograph session. Meanwhile the teams will still be scrambling in NC and Denver, CO (the 78 car) to make preparations for the race, even if they cannot test on the beach.
I went to two years of Daytona testing and it was one of the most boring experiences you can imagine. It was a 3 day test. Normally, the first day was all single car runs, then the next 2 days were single car runs in the AM and drafting in the PM. During the single car sessions they would only let 3 cars on the track at one time. So you would go out and make a run, come in, make a change, the car would go out again and you would wait on the pit road for half an hour until the 20 cars ahead of you in line made a run. During the drafting sessions you were on pins and needles that there would not be a wreck.
From an engineering/data perspective, it was sortof a mind fuck. You put all this instrumentation on the car, but most of the time you were looking at the pitot tube trace (wind speed sensor...basically) to see if the lap time change was due to the wind or something you actually changed on the car. The wind is so brutal there sometimes that the car would exit turn 2 and the RPM would stay the same the whole way down the backstretch due to the headwind.
Before the test you spend a bunch of time in the wind tunnel testing body panels, and then you would bring the best of the bunch and try to run them on the track to see if the gains were real, but at times it was really hard to tell.With the old cars and the current Busch cars and trucks, the premium was to get as much rear shock travel as possible to get the spoiler low and out of the air. The COTs still like the rear of the car to travel alot, but the sensitivity is much lower with the wing on the back. Spoilers make downforce (and drag) from slowing the air over the surface of the car, where as a wing speeds up the air on the lower surface of the wing and makes a suction force that acts down on the car. With a wing there is less drag penalty due to its small profile. All of the manufacturers run ride height windtunnel and simulation tests to find the shock travel that results in the lowest drag, and the crew chief would try to figure out how to achieve that with springs and bar and whatever.
The other thing that always seems to be a gain with the COT is running it as loose as you can. Running a loose setup will require the driver to turn the wheel less and the tires will not scrub as much in the corners and there will be less speed loss. Daytona is all about eliminating drag in everything from the engine and drive to the tires. Of course the cars that are locked into the feild will be more worried about having a stable car that stays consistent late in a run...But that will more difficult to achieve without testing.
I went to two years of Daytona testing and it was one of the most boring experiences you can imagine. It was a 3 day test. Normally, the first day was all single car runs, then the next 2 days were single car runs in the AM and drafting in the PM. During the single car sessions they would only let 3 cars on the track at one time. So you would go out and make a run, come in, make a change, the car would go out again and you would wait on the pit road for half an hour until the 20 cars ahead of you in line made a run. During the drafting sessions you were on pins and needles that there would not be a wreck.
From an engineering/data perspective, it was sortof a mind fuck. You put all this instrumentation on the car, but most of the time you were looking at the pitot tube trace (wind speed sensor...basically) to see if the lap time change was due to the wind or something you actually changed on the car. The wind is so brutal there sometimes that the car would exit turn 2 and the RPM would stay the same the whole way down the backstretch due to the headwind.
Before the test you spend a bunch of time in the wind tunnel testing body panels, and then you would bring the best of the bunch and try to run them on the track to see if the gains were real, but at times it was really hard to tell.With the old cars and the current Busch cars and trucks, the premium was to get as much rear shock travel as possible to get the spoiler low and out of the air. The COTs still like the rear of the car to travel alot, but the sensitivity is much lower with the wing on the back. Spoilers make downforce (and drag) from slowing the air over the surface of the car, where as a wing speeds up the air on the lower surface of the wing and makes a suction force that acts down on the car. With a wing there is less drag penalty due to its small profile. All of the manufacturers run ride height windtunnel and simulation tests to find the shock travel that results in the lowest drag, and the crew chief would try to figure out how to achieve that with springs and bar and whatever.
The other thing that always seems to be a gain with the COT is running it as loose as you can. Running a loose setup will require the driver to turn the wheel less and the tires will not scrub as much in the corners and there will be less speed loss. Daytona is all about eliminating drag in everything from the engine and drive to the tires. Of course the cars that are locked into the feild will be more worried about having a stable car that stays consistent late in a run...But that will more difficult to achieve without testing.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Seriously? Wood Brothers?
Happy new year to one and all. There is nothing like a change of the year number to breathe a little fresh air into life. New goals, new challenges, and a blank sheet of paper. Obviously 2008 was a bit of a challenge for me in a couple of ways. My career path took a couple of dips and dives. Around Thanks giving of 2007 I was going to leave RGM for Wood Bros., only to have an 11th hour change of heart. (Seriously...Wood Bros.???....What was I smoking???) I was glad that I stayed at Rob's and after "drinking the Kool-Aid" so to speak at the company xmas party, we were set to win 5 races and make the chase. After a torrid beginning of the season, the 5th crew chief of my RGM career started, and he promptly began the task of running RG out of the top 35, and used some bold tactics to get me launched out of RGM in July. It was a bit of a mind fuck for me. I have always been committed to a fault in my life, so I always had some romantic vision of spending my entire NASCAR career at one Cup team. I knew the buisness was not at all stable (NASCAR, not RGM necessarily), and I wanted to live above the bullshit, work tirelessly for one cause, build it the best I could, and leave when the time was right. Although my time was cut shorter than I imagined, I learned a lot, and I have no regrets about any of the decisions I made or any of the hours I worked.
Every end is a new beginning I suppose. After 3 months on the couch I took a job at Toyota Racing Development. But not before I started blogging for the planet, started The Hot Pass store and thehotpass.com with my friend BC, which was the primary reason that got him launched out of RGM too. Funny how that works. Unemployment loves company I guess. Unemployment also got me in trouble with the law, the dramas of which have yet to fully play out. I got a reckless driving ticket for ripping through the Tennessee mountains. I am on probation for that for another 3 months. I also got a speeding ticket visiting friends in New York (86 in a 65). Both of these tickets were in a week of each other. While my parents were in town for xmas I got a letter from NC DMV that my license is suspended as of 1.1.09 unless I requested a hearing since I got a speeding ticket over 75 mph out of state...Blah blah...so I have to defend my honor on the fifteenth....And my dad is wearing me out about speeding ticket.
Anyway...these are all silly problems, and I am a believer that the present is theatre for the future...so it's not all that bad. So horray for 2009. I have some interesting things planned for this year, and my new job hours should allow me to dominate them in the way that they deserve.
NASCAR is obviously pretty quiet just at the moment. There are driver swaps and mergers, but these are well covered in the mainstream media. They are not creating many, if any, new jobs, so they are not that significant around here. The best on track action until Daytona is for sure the Dakar Rally. Hopefully RG can continue to represent America well again in this event and win some stages. In honor of this event, thehotpass.com store is pleased to announce the "10 Stages of Dakar". Each weekday starting on January 5th The Hot Pass will release a different Dakar or Robby Gordon related item with no reserve. (Except for the 1st day, as the stickers will be buy it now only.) The picture below shows the order of items.
Happy New Year...Dominate on 3.
Every end is a new beginning I suppose. After 3 months on the couch I took a job at Toyota Racing Development. But not before I started blogging for the planet, started The Hot Pass store and thehotpass.com with my friend BC, which was the primary reason that got him launched out of RGM too. Funny how that works. Unemployment loves company I guess. Unemployment also got me in trouble with the law, the dramas of which have yet to fully play out. I got a reckless driving ticket for ripping through the Tennessee mountains. I am on probation for that for another 3 months. I also got a speeding ticket visiting friends in New York (86 in a 65). Both of these tickets were in a week of each other. While my parents were in town for xmas I got a letter from NC DMV that my license is suspended as of 1.1.09 unless I requested a hearing since I got a speeding ticket over 75 mph out of state...Blah blah...so I have to defend my honor on the fifteenth....And my dad is wearing me out about speeding ticket.
Anyway...these are all silly problems, and I am a believer that the present is theatre for the future...so it's not all that bad. So horray for 2009. I have some interesting things planned for this year, and my new job hours should allow me to dominate them in the way that they deserve.
NASCAR is obviously pretty quiet just at the moment. There are driver swaps and mergers, but these are well covered in the mainstream media. They are not creating many, if any, new jobs, so they are not that significant around here. The best on track action until Daytona is for sure the Dakar Rally. Hopefully RG can continue to represent America well again in this event and win some stages. In honor of this event, thehotpass.com store is pleased to announce the "10 Stages of Dakar". Each weekday starting on January 5th The Hot Pass will release a different Dakar or Robby Gordon related item with no reserve. (Except for the 1st day, as the stickers will be buy it now only.) The picture below shows the order of items.
Happy New Year...Dominate on 3.
"10 Stages of Dakar"
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