Podcast: Braking Bias
Published Date:
Sat, 04 Nov 2023 14:00:00 -0400
Duration:
5052
Explicit:
False
Guests:
Brian Murphy
MP3 Audio:
Please note that the summary is generated based on the transcript and may not capture all the nuances or details discussed in the podcast episode.
The Braking Bias team is ready to Shake and Bake!
Did you know the worlds of Formula 1 and Stock Car racing actually have a lot in common?
Braking Bias is super excited to welcome former member of NASCARs Stewart Haas Racing, Brian Murphy to the pod as our first ever guest to talk all things NASCAR and stock cars and their aerodynamics.
The team dives right in with explanations of stock car aerodynamics, what makes this current generation different, how similar it is to the current open wheel series, what sort of paradigm shifts have had to occur at teams to work on these new generation of cars. Before tackling downforce loss, set ups, and how to manage the new cars.
Stock cars only have 25 total hours of practice in an entire 36 race season compared to 110 in years before, and 70 in Formula 1? Brian discusses fascinating ways team mange this and the importance of unpacking a car that's ready to go for race weekend and how they have to rely on OEMs and work together with their competition more than ever before to be successful.
The team talks a ton of fascinating topics around the world of stock car racing that leaves no shortage of incredible tech talk in this jam packed episode.
Settle in and set you bias aside to get Braking Bias.
twittter.com/Brian_Murphy_
In this episode of the Breaking Bias podcast, hosts Dr. Obbs and Molly Marissa sit down with their first guest, Brian Murphy, a former associate shop foreman at Stuart Haas Racing. Murphy takes the listeners on a journey through his introduction to motorsports, initially indifferent but later captivated by NASCAR after experiencing a race at Watkins Glen. The discussion delves into his career progression, starting in a local shop that built late-model stock chassis and eventually leading to his role at Stewart Haas Racing.
Moving on to the main topics, the conversation explores the significant aerodynamic changes from the Gen 6 to Gen 7 Cup cars. Murphy details the features of the Gen 7 cars, including a symmetrical body, standardized underbody, and a different suspension system. The introduction of an underbody scanner for precise measurements aims to reduce costs and promote sustainability in the sport.
The impact of dirty air in NASCAR, particularly with the Gen 7 cars, becomes a focal point of the discussion. Murphy highlights how increased downforce can make these cars more susceptible to losing downforce when following another car, leading to dirtier air. The question arises whether the current era has dirtier air or if teams simply have more data and understanding of the phenomenon. Minimizing yaw is emphasized as crucial to mitigate the negative effects of dirty air.
Weight management and spoiler adjustments take center stage as Murphy underscores the importance of these factors, particularly on short tracks where cars generate minimal downforce. Teams can manipulate spoiler face and ride height within allowed tolerances to optimize airflow and maximize downforce.
The conversation expands to various phenomena in stock car racing, such as side drafting, wall proximity, and the intriguing "wall ride" maneuver by Ross Chastain at Martinsville. Murphy explains how drivers strategically manipulate airflow around their cars and their competitors, and the debate on the aerodynamic effects of wall proximity.
The role of drivers in understanding and utilizing aerodynamics effectively is emphasized by Murphy. Drivers can feel real-time aerodynamic changes and grip levels, allowing them to make adjustments and communicate with their teams during a race. The limited in-car adjustments available in NASCAR, with only brake bias being adjustable during a race, adds an extra layer of complexity.
In conclusion, the podcast wraps up with a discussion on the challenges and opportunities presented by the new aerodynamic regulations in NASCAR. Murphy expresses excitement about the future of motorsports, particularly the potential for collaboration and knowledge-sharing between different racing series. The episode provides a comprehensive exploration of the intricacies of aerodynamics and strategy in NASCAR, offering valuable insights into the world of high-speed racing.
[00:00.000 -> 00:19.480] Welcome back to this week's episode of the Breaking Bias Podcast.
[00:19.480 -> 00:21.760] I am joined by my co-host, Dr. Obbs.
[00:21.760 -> 00:23.560] How are you doing this week?
[00:23.560 -> 00:24.880] I'm doing good, Molly.
[00:24.880 -> 00:29.280] We had a really great race in Formula One in Austin.
[00:29.280 -> 00:32.800] We've got lots of NASCAR stuff going on right now.
[00:32.800 -> 00:35.720] So it's like kind of motorsports out the wazoo at the moment.
[00:35.720 -> 00:37.080] I'm loving it.
[00:37.080 -> 00:38.080] Yeah, I am too.
[00:38.080 -> 00:40.160] And I actually think that that is a great way
[00:40.160 -> 00:44.080] to introduce our first ever guest to the Breaking Bias
[00:44.080 -> 00:46.560] podcast. Some of you may recognize him
[00:46.560 -> 00:53.360] from his incredible NASCAR insights over on Twitter. So I am actually pleased to introduce
[00:53.360 -> 00:58.560] Brian Murphy, who is a former associate shop foreman at Stuart Haas Racing with an extensive
[00:58.560 -> 01:01.560] background in vehicle construction to Breaking Bias.
[01:01.560 -> 01:05.300] Man, thanks guys. I am honored to be the first guest.
[01:05.300 -> 01:08.000] I love, love this podcast so much.
[01:08.000 -> 01:10.880] And I'm really excited to talk just not even NASCAR,
[01:10.880 -> 01:12.440] but motorsports in general.
[01:12.440 -> 01:16.320] There's so many great opportunities to connect dots
[01:16.320 -> 01:17.900] and create relationships.
[01:17.900 -> 01:22.280] And it's a fantastic time to be a motorsports fan.
[01:22.280 -> 01:23.400] Yeah, it really is.
[01:23.400 -> 01:25.920] And I think when we set out to create braking bias,
[01:25.920 -> 01:28.840] we didn't want to stick in one lane because of that exactly.
[01:28.840 -> 01:31.560] There's so much out there and so much incredible tech
[01:31.560 -> 01:34.160] and incredible people in other sports and other series.
[01:34.160 -> 01:36.040] And as you learn about other series,
[01:36.040 -> 01:38.920] you may find that other series have a similar kind of thread
[01:38.920 -> 01:41.000] to pull or similar type of tech principles.
[01:41.000 -> 01:42.560] So I'm so excited.
[01:42.560 -> 01:45.240] I know we've all been very excited to have you on the pod.
[01:45.240 -> 01:48.040] So before we jump in, I think depicting your brain
[01:48.040 -> 01:50.160] in the world of NASCAR and some other motorsports tech,
[01:50.160 -> 01:52.900] could you introduce yourself for the podcast listeners
[01:52.900 -> 01:54.320] and kind of what your background is
[01:54.320 -> 01:56.440] and was your plan always motorsports
[01:56.440 -> 01:59.160] or did you kind of find it along the way?
[01:59.160 -> 02:01.880] No, I actually didn't grow up in a family
[02:01.880 -> 02:04.760] that watched any kind of racing.
[02:04.760 -> 02:05.000] You know, we were, I grew up in Green family that watched any kind of racing.
[02:05.000 -> 02:08.000] We were, I grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, so we were a Packers fan.
[02:08.000 -> 02:10.000] Oh no, I'm a Lions fan.
[02:10.000 -> 02:12.000] Unfortunately for you, I know, I know.
[02:12.000 -> 02:15.000] Yeah, no, I'm happy for you guys this year.
[02:15.000 -> 02:18.000] You know, the Lions have always been like our little brother.
[02:18.000 -> 02:20.000] Wow.
[02:20.000 -> 02:28.200] The Vikings and the Bears are where my hatred goes, so I'm proud of you guys. And hopefully, you can continue this great year of yours.
[02:28.200 -> 02:33.640] But yeah, for me and my family, it was just Packer football.
[02:33.640 -> 02:35.440] Right in the beginning of high school,
[02:35.440 -> 02:39.040] we moved to Rochester, New York, which is a little outside
[02:39.040 -> 02:40.200] Watkins Glen.
[02:40.200 -> 02:45.000] And I remember my mom coming home one day and asking me,
[02:45.000 -> 02:46.800] would you like to go to the NASCAR race?
[02:46.800 -> 02:48.360] And in my head, I was like, hell no,
[02:48.360 -> 02:50.480] I don't want to go watch a bunch of rednecks turn left,
[02:50.480 -> 02:54.360] not even knowing Watkins Glen was a road course, right?
[02:54.360 -> 02:58.840] So my mom said, hey, we're going, we got tickets.
[02:58.840 -> 03:00.680] And I went to the race and I just absolutely
[03:00.680 -> 03:01.640] fell in love with it.
[03:01.640 -> 03:04.800] And every bit of it, the smell, the cars,
[03:04.800 -> 03:05.620] blown away by how
[03:05.620 -> 03:08.760] professional everything was and, you know, just the whole atmosphere.
[03:09.220 -> 03:11.620] And, um, you know, that was junior year of high school.
[03:12.140 -> 03:14.780] So that was in the end of summer, a couple of months later, I was supposed
[03:14.780 -> 03:16.220] to take the SATs for college.
[03:16.220 -> 03:18.900] I skipped those and, uh, inform my mom.
[03:18.900 -> 03:21.340] I was headed down South to, uh, to work in racing.
[03:21.340 -> 03:28.800] So, um, yeah, so she was very surprised. So I've been in the stock car scene
[03:28.800 -> 03:34.720] in the Southeast United States for about 20 years. I started at a local shop here that
[03:34.720 -> 03:40.280] builds late-mile stock chassis. And for those that don't know, they're kind of like short
[03:40.280 -> 03:45.840] track, you know, little brother cars to, you know, the cup series cars, the gen
[03:45.840 -> 03:50.480] six cup series cars. So a lot of those parts could transfer over a lot of the, you know,
[03:50.480 -> 03:54.960] the ideas and things, the, you know, assembling them and all the skill sets that you needed,
[03:54.960 -> 03:58.800] you know, that was kind of the first stepping stone. So I did that for about six or seven
[03:58.800 -> 04:04.560] years. And, you know, I ran across a gentleman that ran a body hanging shop, you know,
[04:07.440 -> 04:10.960] I ran across a gentleman that ran a body hanging shop, metal fabrication, and he hung bodies for Toyota, KBM, and Ford trucks.
[04:10.960 -> 04:14.920] So I just kind of bothered him enough where finally one day he said, hey, you want to
[04:14.920 -> 04:15.920] come build some trucks?
[04:15.920 -> 04:16.920] I said, hell yeah.
[04:16.920 -> 04:24.000] And that's kind of where, in the top three Sears and NASCAR, at some point you kind of
[04:24.000 -> 04:26.080] divert towards a specialty,
[04:26.080 -> 04:27.080] right?
[04:27.080 -> 04:28.560] That's kind of where that happened.
[04:28.560 -> 04:32.480] A few years later, I ran into a couple people that work at Stewart Haas.
[04:32.480 -> 04:38.520] They had an opening, and I went over there as a front-end body hanger for a couple years.
[04:38.520 -> 04:42.880] And then after that, I went to a full-time travel position, taking care of the bodies
[04:42.880 -> 04:46.000] at the racetrack. Back when we had practice, these cars,
[04:46.000 -> 04:50.220] they went through so much destruction
[04:50.220 -> 04:52.520] just through practice.
[04:52.520 -> 04:55.400] But to get them back to legality as you head back
[04:55.400 -> 04:59.160] through the optical scanning station and pre-race,
[04:59.160 -> 05:01.660] there was a lot of work to do just getting the bodies
[05:01.660 -> 05:04.460] not only maximized for your own sake,
[05:04.460 -> 05:06.480] but also just to pass the tech.
[05:06.480 -> 05:10.080] So, uh, once COVID hit, obviously that threw everything off for everybody.
[05:10.080 -> 05:14.440] I think, um, you know, they started limiting people, uh, limiting practice.
[05:14.480 -> 05:19.160] And, um, that's why I came back home and, uh, you know, uh, they gave me an
[05:19.160 -> 05:20.720] opportunity to be associate shop foreman.
[05:20.720 -> 05:23.940] So, um, you know, it's, it's been a great ride, a lot of fun.
[05:24.280 -> 05:28.340] I recently left Stewart house racing a couple of months ago and, um, you know, just can't feel out for a couple for me. It's been a great ride, a lot of fun. I recently left Steward House Racing a couple months ago and I'm just going to feel it out for a
[05:28.340 -> 05:32.080] couple months. I'm sure I'll probably be back in the Cup Series garage sooner than later.
[05:32.080 -> 05:38.000] I'm sure we'll see you around the Cup Series for years to come.
[05:38.000 -> 05:42.160] Yeah, and Brian, that's a really great story. I mean, I think I really respect
[05:42.160 -> 05:47.360] people that really get into the meat of, you know, something
[05:47.360 -> 05:50.400] they're passionate about and they kind of start sort of from the ground up.
[05:50.400 -> 05:54.340] They sort of chase the passion, chase the things that they're interested in, get their
[05:54.340 -> 05:59.040] hands dirty and really, you know, have a story to tell like you do there.
[05:59.040 -> 06:04.820] And you know, I think for somebody like me who, you know, never worked in a professional
[06:04.820 -> 06:06.160] racing team or anything like that,
[06:06.160 -> 06:11.680] but who is such a fan of motorsports in general, I think I really respect that Brian. I think
[06:11.680 -> 06:17.360] that's fantastic. I have some questions about Aero if we want to just go ahead and jump right into
[06:17.360 -> 06:25.280] it. Absolutely. Go right ahead. You're so excited about this. Yeah, you know, this is my jam. Let's do this.
[06:25.280 -> 06:28.640] So, you know, the newest generation of cup cars, right?
[06:28.640 -> 06:32.520] So we've gone from, you know, Gen 7 or Gen 6 to Gen 7, right?
[06:32.520 -> 06:37.080] There was some, some quite a bit of aero changes that occurred.
[06:37.080 -> 06:41.320] Maybe some of our listeners aren't so aware of kind of what changed from the Gen 6 car
[06:41.320 -> 06:42.320] to the Gen 7 car.
[06:42.320 -> 06:43.320] Could you maybe explain that?
[06:43.320 -> 06:46.680] Yeah, and, you know, not just even on the aero side.
[06:46.680 -> 06:48.640] I mean, me and a buddy the other day were laughing
[06:48.640 -> 06:51.880] about the difference between the Gen 6 and Gen 7 car.
[06:51.880 -> 06:54.400] And I think the only thing we could come up with
[06:54.400 -> 06:58.160] was the steering wheel, the driver's seat,
[06:58.160 -> 07:00.760] and the fuel filler, everything else, everything.
[07:00.760 -> 07:03.480] The shifter's different, the driver's different,
[07:03.480 -> 07:07.700] the way they have to optimize this car, this platform.
[07:07.700 -> 07:09.280] So from top to bottom it's different.
[07:09.280 -> 07:13.620] Those cars, we utilized 1970s suspensions.
[07:13.620 -> 07:20.640] They were designed basically off of a front end Camaro and the truck arms came off a 1970s
[07:20.640 -> 07:21.640] truck.
[07:21.640 -> 07:27.020] And a couple weeks ago we actually, we had an XFATI car in the shop that I'm working in right now
[07:27.760 -> 07:30.440] just kind of you know tuning it back up getting it ready and
[07:31.600 -> 07:36.760] We actually went out back took the lower control arm off a 1970s stock front clip
[07:36.760 -> 07:40.200] And it bolted right on to the front clip of this modern-day race car
[07:40.480 -> 07:49.080] So it's just so funny how you know that, the current truck, the Sex Vanity platform,
[07:49.080 -> 07:54.680] we've taken these parts and pieces and they made them so high performance.
[07:54.680 -> 07:59.200] We maximized their ability to the point where they are just as good as really modern day
[07:59.200 -> 08:01.640] technology or modern day designs.
[08:01.640 -> 08:06.480] You fast forward to the Gen 7, obviously, complete different suspensions,
[08:06.480 -> 08:13.440] but on the aerodynamic side, we've added a body that is the same on the left and right.
[08:13.440 -> 08:20.720] It's not skewed. The old right side quarter panels were so flat, so wide, created so much
[08:20.720 -> 08:27.840] right side side force, so much rear down force, and didn't have an underwing like that
[08:27.840 -> 08:34.720] we see in most cars across the world. And you know, that's not to say that those old cars
[08:34.720 -> 08:39.200] wouldn't utilize underbody aerodynamics. And that's part of the reason why NASCAR went to this
[08:39.200 -> 08:49.120] new underwing, the standardized underwing, is the amount of money, the amount of R&D, the amount of time and effort that teams spent maximizing those old style
[08:49.120 -> 08:54.480] suspension pieces to actually create downforce was just something we had to get rid of.
[08:54.520 -> 08:56.800] It was just obnoxiously expensive.
[08:57.480 -> 09:01.200] I think the whole world is headed towards the same path of sustainability.
[09:02.120 -> 09:06.240] And that was a big driver of the underbody aerodynamics that we see now.
[09:07.520 -> 09:13.760] You know, it is a standardized underbody. It's policed by underbody scanner that allows you
[09:13.760 -> 09:18.880] plus or minus 100 thousandths of an inch. So, you know, for a lot of people that seems small,
[09:18.880 -> 09:22.880] and with some people it's small, some people it's big. For us, that's 200 thousandths. That's
[09:22.880 -> 09:25.700] quite a bit of room to play with.
[09:27.700 -> 09:28.040] So it's maximizing
[09:34.940 -> 09:35.700] again, you know, I heard you guys talk about a couple episodes ago, these standard floors that have their own flaws. And how do you
[09:42.020 -> 09:42.860] you know remove, in a way, how do you trick the air to either go around or miss those
[09:46.420 -> 09:51.100] imperfections in the floor? Or how do you create a balance shift? These cars are extremely heavily balanced to the rear.
[09:51.100 -> 09:52.940] So it's, you know, for these cars,
[09:52.940 -> 09:54.120] it's how do you get the splitter
[09:54.120 -> 09:55.860] as low as possible on the front
[09:55.860 -> 09:57.620] and the engine pan as high as possible
[09:57.620 -> 10:00.380] to kind of send more downforce to the front.
[10:00.380 -> 10:01.940] Now, when you, you know,
[10:01.940 -> 10:04.140] one of the things that people tend to not understand
[10:04.140 -> 10:07.040] is even though your splitter is lower, you still have to feed the air more.
[10:07.040 -> 10:11.520] So now you're, you're getting that, that interesting rake, that negative rake that we see in the
[10:11.520 -> 10:15.200] cup cars nowadays where you're feeding these underbodies.
[10:15.200 -> 10:19.400] So it's just a completely different mindset than ever before.
[10:19.400 -> 10:24.120] And yeah, again, it's just, it's, it's fun to see the similarities between the things
[10:24.120 -> 10:25.240] you post in F1,
[10:25.240 -> 10:27.560] the things I see in the sports car world,
[10:27.560 -> 10:30.080] and now the things that we deal with at NASCAR
[10:30.080 -> 10:34.340] between ride height, yaw, brake.
[10:34.340 -> 10:36.240] Yeah, and you know, they're also related,
[10:36.240 -> 10:38.920] I mean, because at the end of the day, it's physics, right?
[10:38.920 -> 10:41.720] And physics doesn't care if it's a cup car
[10:41.720 -> 10:43.840] or a open-wheel racer.
[10:43.840 -> 10:46.840] At the end of the day, it's all about manipulating
[10:46.840 -> 10:48.280] the air.
[10:48.280 -> 10:52.440] And speaking of manipulating the air, you know, in, in Formula 1, one of the things
[10:52.440 -> 10:59.680] that they've talked quite a bit about in 2023 is just kind of the influence of dirty air,
[10:59.680 -> 11:05.880] you know, seems like in Formula 1, the air is getting a bit dirtier, which you know on the one
[11:05.880 -> 11:09.880] hand means that the tow is potentially getting a little bit stronger as well
[11:09.880 -> 11:14.120] right? You know you lose downforce when you get too close but then the slip
[11:14.120 -> 11:19.240] stream can be a little bit better. You know Molly and I were kind of kicking
[11:19.240 -> 11:24.400] this around in the past before as well, you know potentially how has the tow
[11:24.400 -> 11:25.640] changed from
[11:25.640 -> 11:31.160] the gen 6 car to the gen 7 car? Has there been any discussions about that? Any
[11:31.160 -> 11:34.220] changes to maybe strategy and how drivers are driving?
[11:34.220 -> 11:38.120] Well, you know, I think first of all when they came out with this new car and
[11:38.120 -> 11:43.160] this underbody, I think the idea was, you know, that the trailing car would have
[11:43.160 -> 11:46.000] less of a disadvantage.
[11:46.000 -> 11:50.800] It was very, very early on, and not only CFD testing, but wind tunnel testing, that the
[11:50.800 -> 11:56.880] weights of these cars are incredibly huge, which is unfortunate.
[11:56.880 -> 12:02.960] It obviously makes everything, everybody's job harder, makes the job harder around the
[12:02.960 -> 12:05.480] driver, makes the team's job harder,
[12:05.480 -> 12:12.480] and sometimes it can make the product not as entertaining for the fans.
[12:12.480 -> 12:16.720] The other thing too is when you get these underbodies and you end up following a car
[12:16.720 -> 12:21.800] with a wake this size, you lose massive amounts of downforce.
[12:21.800 -> 12:25.520] These underbodies are extremely powerful, extremely efficient,
[12:31.040 -> 12:36.160] but when you shut them off, you're cut off. And I remember hearing, I think on this podcast, we talked about a 30 to 40% loss of downforce behind a car, and that's really what we see.
[12:38.080 -> 12:42.640] So it's, you know, it's just, it's difficult. I mean, I always ask the question,
[12:48.000 -> 12:53.640] it's difficult. I mean, I always ask the question, you know, do we have dirtier air than ever before or do we just know more than we've ever known? And obviously we're never going
[12:53.640 -> 12:59.360] to be able to get rid of it, right? And for a stock car, you know, I think it's weird
[12:59.360 -> 13:10.560] because for a stock car, we are driving bricks in the air, right? They're just these massive things. And really outside of Formula One, you guys, you know, Formula One scene may,
[13:11.100 -> 13:15.000] and I'm just talking, you know, a lot here, may not have as much constant air,
[13:15.260 -> 13:18.360] but the cars are still so sensitive that the dirty air is equally as
[13:18.360 -> 13:20.700] detrimental as in stock car racing.
[13:21.100 -> 13:27.640] So it's just, it's, it's tough to, I guess, figure out, you know, how we maximize, um, you know, the
[13:27.640 -> 13:30.880] ability of the car and, you know, how we stop hurting the
[13:30.960 -> 13:34.800] trailing car. Can we ever fix it? I don't know. Um, but yeah,
[13:34.800 -> 13:37.240] it's, it's tough with these cars, you know, any sort of
[13:37.240 -> 13:40.760] y'all destroys downforce that just kills underbody, uh,
[13:40.760 -> 13:43.720] efficiency. So it's really important that teams make sure
[13:43.720 -> 13:45.120] the car is as straight as possible.
[13:45.320 -> 13:48.340] Unlike the last car where you're searching for downforce, searching for
[13:48.340 -> 13:51.280] side force by yawning the piss out of these cars, right?
[13:53.280 -> 13:54.560] Nowadays you want a straight car.
[13:54.560 -> 13:58.200] You want your driver to be, you know, make sure the car is straight because any kind
[13:58.200 -> 14:04.160] of yaw accidentally just exemplifies the, the, the looser tight condition that you
[14:04.160 -> 14:04.600] see.
[14:05.000 -> 14:05.720] Um, so yeah, it's, it's, it's really tough. just exemplifies the looser tight condition that you've seen.
[14:08.520 -> 14:11.520] So yeah, it's really tough. We've seen a lot of testing trying to fix it.
[14:11.520 -> 14:12.920] Yeah, honestly, I think,
[14:13.840 -> 14:15.400] if you guys have seen some,
[14:15.400 -> 14:17.680] we might think our intermediate tracks are some of the best.
[14:17.680 -> 14:19.960] When we talk about the short tracks,
[14:19.960 -> 14:22.280] we're only seeing two, 300 pounds of downforce
[14:22.280 -> 14:23.680] in the center of the corner at Martinsville.
[14:23.680 -> 14:28.040] So for me, the issues aren't on the aerodynamic side.
[14:28.040 -> 14:32.920] There's a lot of other things we need to take care of before we start messing with the bodies.
[14:32.920 -> 14:36.760] I think that ties really well into our next question about weight management.
[14:36.760 -> 14:44.360] I think you've alluded to how that gets managed and how you set your car up, not only with
[14:44.360 -> 14:45.140] a straightness,
[14:45.140 -> 14:47.360] but, um, reducing yarn, anything like that.
[14:47.360 -> 14:51.120] Is there anything else that you see maybe coming to help manage that
[14:51.120 -> 14:55.220] wake or how do you think wake can be managed with, within your control?
[14:55.220 -> 14:58.380] From a setup standpoint, is this a package to package concern?
[14:58.380 -> 15:00.340] Cause like, I agree with you that I think the intermediate
[15:00.340 -> 15:01.780] track's fantastic, phenomenal.
[15:02.060 -> 15:04.860] But short tracks, there's some other stuff going on and I know there's
[15:04.860 -> 15:06.220] all sorts of different spoilers that NASCAR will require. What do you, phenomenal, but short tracks, there's some other stuff going on. And I know there's all sorts of different spoilers
[15:06.220 -> 15:07.360] that NASCAR will require.
[15:07.360 -> 15:09.260] What do you kind of think there?
[15:09.260 -> 15:11.000] Yeah, I mean, for the people that don't know,
[15:11.000 -> 15:12.660] as I said, the underbodies are policed
[15:12.660 -> 15:14.640] by plus or minus 100 thousandths of an inch.
[15:14.640 -> 15:16.580] The overbodies are plus or minus 150.
[15:16.580 -> 15:18.900] So again, that's 300 thousandths.
[15:18.900 -> 15:21.460] And the box in which we are allowed to work in there
[15:21.460 -> 15:22.520] is just huge.
[15:22.520 -> 15:24.800] We can shut off a large amount of downforce
[15:24.800 -> 15:25.400] at these tracks
[15:25.400 -> 15:27.840] where you're traveling 150 plus, right?
[15:27.840 -> 15:31.440] So, you know, if you go to a speedway race,
[15:31.440 -> 15:35.120] these builds are wildly different within that 300 box,
[15:35.120 -> 15:37.760] wildly different than one that you would see
[15:37.760 -> 15:40.760] at Martinsville or a high-speed intermediate.
[15:40.760 -> 15:43.360] So there is ways to set the body
[15:43.360 -> 15:45.680] in which you maximize the
[15:45.680 -> 15:50.560] spoiler face, how much air it's seeing, how much air you want it to see. You
[15:50.560 -> 15:54.800] know, other things like ride height. Not only are you feeding the underbody, which
[15:54.800 -> 15:58.140] is the most important thing, the underbody really drives the performance. The
[15:58.140 -> 16:01.800] outside of the body is just kind of like the icing on the cake nowadays. So, but
[16:01.800 -> 16:05.020] how do you use your ride height to manipulate what the spoiler
[16:05.020 -> 16:12.340] is or is not seeing? You know, outside of that, it's, it's really tough. And, you know,
[16:12.340 -> 16:17.980] it's, it's, it's really nice because in NASCAR, I feel like, I feel like the goal has always
[16:17.980 -> 16:24.620] been pretty easy outside of 2019, 2020, when we had that 550 package with the huge spoiler,
[16:24.620 -> 16:27.560] right? Where we had to start, it was kind of like Indy,
[16:27.560 -> 16:30.240] at the Indy 500, and a lot of what F1 does, right?
[16:30.240 -> 16:32.120] You have to determine how much high speed you want,
[16:32.120 -> 16:33.620] how much drag you want.
[16:33.620 -> 16:35.080] But for the most part, outside of those two years,
[16:35.080 -> 16:36.560] nowadays, the goal is really easy.
[16:36.560 -> 16:38.420] It's just find maximum performance.
[16:38.420 -> 16:39.920] It doesn't even really matter sometimes
[16:39.920 -> 16:43.600] if it's efficient or not outside of the speedway races.
[16:43.600 -> 16:46.180] You're just out there trying to get as much downforce
[16:46.180 -> 16:50.920] as you can on these cars, which makes, again, the goal easy.
[16:50.920 -> 16:53.000] It's just really difficult with the tolerances
[16:53.000 -> 16:55.280] that we're allowed to find large gains.
[16:55.280 -> 16:59.480] I remember going to the wind tunnel and coming back
[16:59.480 -> 17:01.560] and we gained 20 counts of downforce,
[17:01.560 -> 17:03.080] we gained 40 counts of downforce.
[17:03.080 -> 17:04.980] That was mind-blowing.
[17:04.980 -> 17:05.020] It was like, wow, you know what I mean? Like, did you see what we just got? we gained 20 pounds of downforce, we gained 40 pounds of downforce. That was mind-blowing.
[17:05.020 -> 17:07.020] It was like, wow.
[17:07.020 -> 17:07.860] You know what I mean?
[17:07.860 -> 17:10.320] Like, did you see what we just got?
[17:10.320 -> 17:11.400] Whereas a couple of months ago,
[17:11.400 -> 17:13.760] I went to the Lintel with a Trans Am car,
[17:13.760 -> 17:16.400] and we came back with an extra 600 pounds of downforce.
[17:16.400 -> 17:19.320] I hadn't seen that in my entire career.
[17:19.320 -> 17:20.160] You know what I mean?
[17:20.160 -> 17:21.680] It was just, you know,
[17:21.680 -> 17:28.680] the box in the Cups here especially is just so small. You're really just tuning on what the manufacturer has brought to the table.
[17:28.680 -> 17:30.960] I think that that's also a good segue into our next question.
[17:30.960 -> 17:33.900] I don't know if, Opsy, you had any more questions about that.
[17:33.900 -> 17:37.760] I think this is actually good to jump into that because we talk about the Speedway packages
[17:37.760 -> 17:42.680] and some of the different tracks that we go to and how important really that this arrow
[17:42.680 -> 17:48.340] is in stock car racing. Can you give us like any insights to phenomenons that we hear a lot
[17:48.340 -> 17:51.840] about in stock car racing, like side drafting, how wall proximity can
[17:51.840 -> 17:56.100] affect your car or handling differences based on your place within the pack of
[17:56.100 -> 17:56.460] cars.
[17:56.460 -> 17:59.740] And I think this is also great because it is the one year anniversary of
[17:59.740 -> 18:04.040] the infamous NASCAR wall ride, the hell melon that Ross Chastain did at
[18:04.040 -> 18:04.700] Martinsville.
[18:05.700 -> 18:09.840] Um, yeah, I mean, that's one thing I think you'd see a lot of in, especially
[18:09.840 -> 18:15.080] the truck series and the cup series now is drivers manipulating their competitors
[18:15.080 -> 18:18.120] cars just by where they place their own car.
[18:18.480 -> 18:24.640] Um, you know, whether it be getting up on someone's left rear quarter and, and
[18:24.880 -> 18:26.560] pushing as much air,
[18:26.560 -> 18:28.320] diverting as much air underneath the car
[18:28.320 -> 18:30.560] to actually lift up the car
[18:30.560 -> 18:34.660] and disturb how efficient the diffuser is to get them loose.
[18:35.920 -> 18:39.600] Speedway, speedway races, when you're next to somebody,
[18:39.600 -> 18:41.000] if you can get that really close
[18:41.000 -> 18:43.180] and you can shove more air out of their spoiler,
[18:43.180 -> 18:48.960] which you can do that really at any racetrack, but shove more air on that spoiler to slow them down to get a run.
[18:50.400 -> 18:56.400] You know there's so many different ways that drivers you know can really disturb you know
[18:56.400 -> 19:01.040] the people around them and we see people like Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, it takes years for
[19:01.040 -> 19:07.080] people to understand, drivers to understand how they can utilize this. And some people think it's kind of a dirty move,
[19:07.080 -> 19:08.560] which is kind of interesting,
[19:08.560 -> 19:12.880] but yeah, it's an art for sure.
[19:12.880 -> 19:16.960] And learning when and how and how much to disturb that air.
[19:16.960 -> 19:19.300] I mean, when you get a car right behind another car
[19:19.300 -> 19:21.800] and you are blocking off that diffuser,
[19:21.800 -> 19:24.160] you're essentially shutting off the underbody.
[19:24.160 -> 19:29.880] And how that manipulates their car, where you're at in the corner, are you getting into
[19:29.880 -> 19:30.880] the corner?
[19:30.880 -> 19:34.080] There's places where you can and can't do that.
[19:34.080 -> 19:38.840] And the drivers really, it's kind of a respect thing and when and how they do it.
[19:38.840 -> 19:46.400] So the wall proximity thing, that's an interesting you know I'm on the side where I say
[19:46.400 -> 19:51.520] we are running 3,600 pound stock cars that there's no air in between a car and a wall that is going
[19:51.520 -> 19:56.240] to stop that car from hitting the wall. You know there's things like side force things like that
[19:56.240 -> 20:01.920] and there's half the group say yes that air is not important enough to worry about and then
[20:01.920 -> 20:06.960] there's people especially this week after Olmstedead, we see Kyle Larson, all these guys ripping the top
[20:06.960 -> 20:08.560] that say, how else would it be possible
[20:08.560 -> 20:10.780] if there wasn't a bubble there?
[20:10.780 -> 20:14.160] So it's just, you know, that's one thing I know
[20:14.160 -> 20:17.060] very few people have been able to test, it's tough.
[20:18.640 -> 20:20.840] We do have some sensors that we are able to put on
[20:20.840 -> 20:23.880] during manufacturer testing, things like that,
[20:23.880 -> 20:26.040] where we can see some sort
[20:26.040 -> 20:31.240] of aerodynamic change when you get close to the wall or where you're at compared to another
[20:31.240 -> 20:35.080] car, but nothing definitive enough to say yes or no on the wall.
[20:35.080 -> 20:38.720] I'd say that's always one of my favorite things to think about because when I go down
[20:38.720 -> 20:43.080] like the principles of fluid mechanics and aerodynamics, you get up on a wall, and I'm
[20:43.080 -> 20:48.280] sure in your PhD is going to blow me out of the water with this, but you're creating a constriction of air and
[20:48.280 -> 20:51.760] an acceleration of air with low pressure.
[20:51.760 -> 20:55.960] In basic principle theory, I'm on the side of it probably does help because you're now
[20:55.960 -> 20:56.960] shooting all that air.
[20:56.960 -> 20:57.960] There is people that say the drag side.
[20:57.960 -> 20:58.960] Lower, yeah.
[20:58.960 -> 21:07.720] When we go speed racing, stay away from the wall, things like that. So the drag, I think there's a lot to it.
[21:07.720 -> 21:09.240] Maybe he can help us out here.
[21:09.240 -> 21:10.240] Maybe he can prove me wrong.
[21:10.240 -> 21:11.240] Please prove me wrong.
[21:11.240 -> 21:17.160] I was just going to say, I mean, at the end of the day, ground effect in general is the
[21:17.160 -> 21:19.760] same whether it's straight up and down or side to side.
[21:19.760 -> 21:26.840] I mean, anytime that you're forcing air through a construction, you're accelerating it.
[21:26.840 -> 21:30.480] We all feel it whenever we walk in between buildings and you just almost get blown over
[21:30.480 -> 21:32.800] by the vent area effect, right?
[21:32.800 -> 21:34.280] And it's pretty much the same thing.
[21:34.280 -> 21:38.360] And as you're doing that, you're actually causing the, you know, you're increasing the
[21:38.360 -> 21:43.400] dynamic pressure and then you're generating a bit of, you know, low pressure in that area.
[21:43.400 -> 21:44.840] So yeah, you get a bit of suction.
[21:44.840 -> 21:48.480] I was going to say, Brian, I think it's really interesting
[21:48.480 -> 21:50.160] when you think about kind of the differences
[21:50.160 -> 21:53.260] between stock cars and open wheel racers
[21:53.260 -> 21:56.260] in that open wheel racers, I think are,
[21:57.320 -> 21:59.880] barring maybe that this new generation of car
[21:59.880 -> 22:02.080] is doing a lot more ground effect
[22:02.080 -> 22:05.560] than previous flat bottom car generations.
[22:05.560 -> 22:10.340] But you can almost kind of create a ground effect
[22:10.340 -> 22:14.740] with a stock car that has a flat bottom
[22:14.740 -> 22:17.380] based off of the rake, like you're saying, right?
[22:17.380 -> 22:20.120] And then also on top of that,
[22:20.120 -> 22:22.140] whenever you now have a large frontal area
[22:22.140 -> 22:23.500] like you do in a stock car
[22:23.500 -> 22:30.440] where you're having to now punch a hole in that air, you really do have to be cognizant and aware of everything
[22:30.440 -> 22:35.040] that's going on around you, like you said, because you can position yourself to also
[22:35.040 -> 22:40.620] catch a benefit from the proximity of a car near you as well, which is kind of like two
[22:40.620 -> 22:45.960] cars that get really close together sometimes can both,
[22:45.960 -> 22:47.520] it's just like the slingshot effect.
[22:47.520 -> 22:50.880] Two cars that are both close together in the toe
[22:50.880 -> 22:53.760] can effectively have a combined less drag effect
[22:53.760 -> 22:56.600] than two cars that are maybe a car apart
[22:56.600 -> 22:58.040] or a car and a half apart, right?
[22:58.040 -> 23:00.520] Because as you essentially connect that wake,
[23:00.520 -> 23:03.800] it's like one big longer car that everything's just working
[23:03.800 -> 23:05.400] and it's kind of a bubble.
[23:05.400 -> 23:07.600] So that's an interesting thing
[23:07.600 -> 23:09.280] because it's almost like sometimes drivers
[23:09.280 -> 23:11.560] kind of have to be a little bit of an aerodynamicist
[23:11.560 -> 23:13.500] as well themselves to kind of,
[23:13.500 -> 23:16.820] or talk to aeros and understand it to be able to say,
[23:16.820 -> 23:19.960] oh yeah, okay, so if I move my place a little bit this way
[23:19.960 -> 23:21.280] and that way, then it's gonna affect them.
[23:21.280 -> 23:24.480] I'm glad you mentioned getting close to some ice diffuser
[23:24.480 -> 23:28.520] and essentially kind of choking off that extraction
[23:28.520 -> 23:31.440] that you're getting through the floor by getting close.
[23:31.440 -> 23:35.200] You can definitely cause them to have a bit of a loose rear.
[23:35.200 -> 23:38.920] Yeah, and we see it at the air and media all the time
[23:38.920 -> 23:41.200] when you're watching a cup race, especially now,
[23:41.200 -> 23:42.760] but you see these guys searching around
[23:42.760 -> 23:44.960] just for clean air, diving to the bottom.
[23:44.960 -> 23:45.400] Their cart might not even, diving to the bottom.
[23:45.400 -> 23:49.040] Their car might not even be better on the bottom, but if you're shutting off that 30%,
[23:49.040 -> 23:54.160] like we talked about, it's important for these guys to make sure they are feeding these underbodies.
[23:54.160 -> 23:58.240] Otherwise, their car isn't going to perform regardless of where on track they are.
[23:58.240 -> 24:03.200] Yeah, there's nothing in the cockpit that can really help them even with what the tools
[24:03.200 -> 24:05.320] they have available at that
[24:05.320 -> 24:06.320] point.
[24:06.320 -> 24:07.320] Yeah.
[24:07.320 -> 24:08.680] I mean, I've never driven a stock car.
[24:08.680 -> 24:11.480] I'm sure, Brian, you've talked to people who have.
[24:11.480 -> 24:14.000] Is that something they can feel?
[24:14.000 -> 24:19.520] In F1, race engineers say the best sensor they have on the car is the driver's rear
[24:19.520 -> 24:22.640] end, which is connected to the car.
[24:22.640 -> 24:26.800] They can feel everything. I think it was in the last race in Austin
[24:26.800 -> 24:31.820] I can't remember if it was in the sprint race Molly, but one of the drivers had mentioned something about how I
[24:33.120 -> 24:38.540] Think there's some I think it was Fernando Alonso. Maybe I said, I think there's floor damage and they're like
[24:40.200 -> 24:45.900] We're check we'll check like we'll check the sensors, you know, like because his rear end sensor picked it up.
[24:47.640 -> 24:51.760] Yeah, no, it's, I mean, to your point, that is, you know,
[24:51.760 -> 24:56.320] these drivers feeling the car in real life, the real air,
[24:57.440 -> 25:01.480] you know, the grip levels is different than even in the
[25:01.480 -> 25:02.600] driver simulator.
[25:02.600 -> 25:06.560] And when they go out and they can dictate
[25:06.560 -> 25:08.160] where and how the car is reacting
[25:08.160 -> 25:12.360] by just the aerodynamic side, it's huge.
[25:12.360 -> 25:15.720] We saw Kyle Larson this past week at Homestead
[25:15.720 -> 25:17.040] came on the radio and said,
[25:17.040 -> 25:22.040] listen, the back of the car is too aero tight for me.
[25:22.120 -> 25:26.560] So I need you guys to somehow change the balance of the
[25:26.560 -> 25:32.560] car somehow, whether it be rake, whatever you guys can do, so that aerodynamically,
[25:32.560 -> 25:37.200] you know, it helps me. So these drivers are feeling the car, they're feeling the air,
[25:37.200 -> 25:43.200] you know, they can feel it behind a car, you know, whether they're on the top of the track
[25:43.200 -> 25:46.300] or the bottom of the track. So, you know, it's important. These guys, whether they're on the top of the track or the bottom of the track. So, you know, it's important.
[25:46.300 -> 25:51.200] These guys, whether they're a veteran or a rookie, you know, they have to be on top of
[25:51.200 -> 25:56.000] their game at any level, in any series, you know, if they're going to go out and win races.
[25:56.000 -> 25:59.620] I think it's important, too, for our listeners to understand there really is only one thing
[25:59.620 -> 26:04.180] that the driver has control of adjustment-wise that can kind of help that balance a little
[26:04.180 -> 26:07.960] bit with their rear track bar, and everything else has to be kind
[26:07.960 -> 26:11.840] of well the new car the new car doesn't have a track bar I'm so yeah I keep
[26:11.840 -> 26:16.640] they don't have a track bar with the independent rear anymore no that's right
[26:16.640 -> 26:21.240] so everything's done on pit road now so it's it's a huge kind of risk versus
[26:21.240 -> 26:29.660] reward if I want the car fixed please help me there's nothing they can do in car, whereas I think a lot of our F1 listeners might be used to hearing
[26:29.660 -> 26:33.780] the driver be called, hey, do this with your brake balance, do this with your diff. There
[26:33.780 -> 26:39.340] is brake balance for the road course cars. And everywhere. We can adjust the brake bias.
[26:39.340 -> 26:42.540] Okay. Maybe that's a good point just to go off the
[26:42.540 -> 26:50.480] cuff just a little bit here and kind of camp out over there. What sort of adjustments can they make during a race, right? So like, you know,
[26:50.480 -> 26:54.080] whenever a driver comes into a pit stop, I mean, you know, in Formula One, you can do wing
[26:54.080 -> 27:00.880] adjustments. Like Molly said, you can do kind of, you know, in race adjustments from the cockpit.
[27:01.680 -> 27:05.920] If you can't do that in the cup cars, what sort of adjustments can you do?
[27:05.920 -> 27:06.880] So it's tough now, right?
[27:06.880 -> 27:09.920] Because with the one lug nut and the speed
[27:09.920 -> 27:11.760] in which these pit stops are happening
[27:11.760 -> 27:15.080] and only having really, you know,
[27:15.080 -> 27:18.560] you have two changers, one tire carrier, one jack man.
[27:18.560 -> 27:21.000] So the only people that can really touch the car,
[27:21.000 -> 27:22.520] fuel man's not allowed to make an adjustment
[27:22.520 -> 27:24.040] or do anything about fuel the car.
[27:24.040 -> 27:30.800] You really only have four people and when the stop is going so quick, when you make
[27:30.800 -> 27:35.960] an adjustment of any kind, it is slowing the stop down substantially and you are losing
[27:35.960 -> 27:38.560] very valuable on track positions.
[27:38.560 -> 27:43.480] The things you can do, first and foremost, tire pressure because you aren't slowing the
[27:43.480 -> 27:45.280] pit stop down when you do that.
[27:45.280 -> 27:50.640] You can do rear wedge adjustments, those are the adjustments through the rear glass to
[27:50.640 -> 27:52.720] the springs.
[27:52.720 -> 27:57.840] And then really, you can make some shock adjustments, but now you're really starting to slow these
[27:57.840 -> 27:58.840] pit stops down.
[27:58.840 -> 28:06.920] So it's just so tough nowadays with the amount practice and and how fast the pit stops are not just to make
[28:06.920 -> 28:12.720] An adjustment off the truck during practice but just making adjustment during the race is really difficult with
[28:12.720 -> 28:15.900] These, new, cars aerodynamically you're not moving body parts
[28:17.640 -> 28:19.540] You're, not even really i mean with these, new
[28:19.540 -> 28:24.000] Bodies you can't even try to pull side skirts like, we did with the old car you can't try to run into the door to
[28:24.000 -> 28:25.700] Denim in and i'm so skirts like we did with the old car. You can't try to run into the door to den them in. And I'm trying to gain.
[28:25.700 -> 28:27.940] I'm so used to seeing that with the pit stops.
[28:27.940 -> 28:28.440] Yeah.
[28:28.440 -> 28:29.940] A nice little hip check.
[28:29.940 -> 28:31.540] Nowadays, it is really tough.
[28:31.540 -> 28:35.820] And really, you're just hoping that a simple wedge adjustment
[28:35.820 -> 28:38.000] or tire pressure adjustment can do the things
[28:38.000 -> 28:39.060] the driver is asking for.
[28:39.060 -> 28:40.340] I'm going to jump ahead in our question list
[28:40.340 -> 28:41.580] here, because I think you kind of mentioned that
[28:41.580 -> 28:42.820] in coming off the truck.
[28:42.820 -> 28:44.220] And you've kind of talked about it,
[28:44.220 -> 28:45.300] and we've kind of mentioned it that
[28:45.500 -> 28:47.700] NASCAR doesn't really have extended practice sessions.
[28:47.700 -> 28:50.300] They don't really have practice at all, really in reality.
[28:50.600 -> 28:54.800] And it started in 2020 with COVID where there was no practice prior to races
[28:54.800 -> 28:59.500] where you rolled off the truck and that's what you had right into qualifying.
[28:59.500 -> 29:03.900] And that trend has since pretty much continued through the years now in
[29:03.900 -> 29:04.800] post COVID times.
[29:04.800 -> 29:05.040] And there are 15 minute kind of sessions now. trend has since pretty much continued through the years now in post COVID times.
[29:05.040 -> 29:08.280] And there are 15 minute kind of sessions now.
[29:08.600 -> 29:14.000] How significant was learning how to deal with the lack of practice as a team?
[29:14.360 -> 29:18.120] Yeah, I'm really actually excited to talk about this one with you guys, because
[29:18.520 -> 29:21.040] I'm curious how it works, especially in F1 and other series.
[29:21.080 -> 29:25.000] You know, for us in NASCAR, in 2019,
[29:25.100 -> 29:28.000] the Cup Series had about 110 practice hours a year.
[29:29.200 -> 29:30.720] Obviously, since then, we've cut it back
[29:30.720 -> 29:33.440] to 15 minute practices where really throughout the year,
[29:33.440 -> 29:36.560] you only have 25 minutes of practice.
[29:36.560 -> 29:40.520] So you're really reliant on your simulation models
[29:40.520 -> 29:44.680] to set you up, to help you unload off the truck
[29:44.680 -> 29:48.120] as well prepared as possible.
[29:48.120 -> 29:50.000] Once you go through tech, you go through tech
[29:50.000 -> 29:51.640] as soon as you get off the truck,
[29:51.640 -> 29:55.120] your options on what you change are so limited,
[29:55.120 -> 29:57.680] you're barely allowed to jack up the car during practice
[29:57.680 -> 29:58.680] to make changes.
[29:58.680 -> 30:07.440] So the importance of unloading quick or dialed in almost perfectly is really what,
[30:07.440 -> 30:11.680] you know, sets the leaders from the people that are running good. You know, how are these
[30:11.680 -> 30:15.680] simulation models built? You know, for us, we have wheel force tests with the manufacturer.
[30:16.240 -> 30:21.520] There's about four or five in a year. They're kind of agreed on by the crew chiefs on where and how,
[30:22.240 -> 30:25.040] and that kind of sets a lot of mechanical parameters
[30:25.600 -> 30:30.320] in your simulation models. And you're kind of, once you go to a racetrack, you may not go back
[30:30.320 -> 30:34.720] for a couple years. So that's kind of what you have for that racetrack for quite some time.
[30:34.720 -> 30:39.760] Aerodynamically, when you go to the wind tunnel, you'll get your aero maps on where your car is.
[30:39.760 -> 30:45.240] And nowadays that's really tough because the manufacturer controls all the wind tunnel time.
[30:45.240 -> 30:49.920] So on the Ford side, back in the day where Stewart-Hawks could just go and test all their
[30:49.920 -> 30:53.720] own cars, all their own ideas, that's no longer a thing.
[30:53.720 -> 30:59.320] Everybody gets together in the Ford group, they test different theories on a test mule,
[30:59.320 -> 31:04.480] a car that's not even a real race car, and you take all that information back and you
[31:04.480 -> 31:07.720] put it on your real race cars. Well everybody's kind of got their own style. Everybody's got their
[31:07.720 -> 31:12.480] own flavors. Everybody's got their own way of doing things. Right. So then you kind of
[31:12.480 -> 31:17.600] can end up going down a path, which, you know, we kind of did a Surt Hassan in 2021, where
[31:17.600 -> 31:21.400] we actually gained, you know, we had our own test meal at that point. And we were going
[31:21.400 -> 31:24.480] to the wind tunnel with it and so the race car. And what we found out is we brought a
[31:24.480 -> 31:26.180] race car to the track, to the wind tunnel.
[31:26.520 -> 31:29.160] We gained a couple of hundred pounds of downforce with not even knowing.
[31:29.620 -> 31:31.000] And people would say, well, that's good.
[31:31.480 -> 31:31.960] And you know what?
[31:31.960 -> 31:35.040] That's not good because that wasn't in our simulation model.
[31:35.680 -> 31:39.920] So that was actually, even though we had improved the race car, it was actually
[31:39.920 -> 31:41.960] throwing off our whole simulation model.
[31:42.480 -> 31:46.480] And we were chasing our tail like a dog for months on end,
[31:46.480 -> 31:51.200] not knowing that we just simply needed to update our aero map.
[31:51.200 -> 31:55.400] So I think it's one of the most underrated aspects of the sport
[31:55.400 -> 31:58.040] that people don't understand is how important
[31:58.040 -> 32:01.440] not only these simulation models are to your performance
[32:01.440 -> 32:04.280] on track weekly, but how your cars you build
[32:04.280 -> 32:07.100] have to actually match those simulation models.
[32:07.100 -> 32:09.580] Otherwise, all the information you're getting
[32:09.580 -> 32:11.180] and giving is completely junk.
[32:11.180 -> 32:14.220] Yeah, so maybe talking about aero maps,
[32:14.220 -> 32:17.880] question for me, somebody who's not as in the details
[32:17.880 -> 32:20.040] on the NASCAR side, I know on the IndyCar side,
[32:20.040 -> 32:22.640] you know that the, I mean, Dallara,
[32:22.640 -> 32:26.000] the chassis manufacturer is going to, for a track,
[32:26.000 -> 32:28.820] kind of give a starting point for most teams,
[32:28.820 -> 32:30.700] for most tracks, you know,
[32:30.700 -> 32:32.480] with like a kind of starting arrow map
[32:32.480 -> 32:34.440] and they sort of build off of that.
[32:34.440 -> 32:36.320] Is that how it's done in NASCAR as well?
[32:36.320 -> 32:38.580] Or is it the manufacturer that's kind of giving you
[32:38.580 -> 32:40.400] the starting arrow map
[32:40.400 -> 32:41.840] and then you're kind of tweaking it from there?
[32:41.840 -> 32:44.640] Yeah, it's basically all manufacturer driven now.
[32:44.640 -> 32:49.740] So every wind tunnel hour has to go through the manufacturer.
[32:49.740 -> 32:55.440] There's no longer any kind of team ability to take their own things, take their own cars.
[32:55.440 -> 33:00.520] So the manufacturer then in Ford, they basically have what they call a Ford Plus program.
[33:00.520 -> 33:10.400] It's Penske, RFK, and Stuart Haas. And when the next gen came out, everybody dumped some engineers into this program, and
[33:10.400 -> 33:15.920] everybody has to work collectively now, which is kind of strange, right?
[33:15.920 -> 33:16.920] And so-
[33:16.920 -> 33:18.480] How has that been?
[33:18.480 -> 33:21.760] This is normally a series of secrets and spies.
[33:21.760 -> 33:22.760] Yeah.
[33:22.760 -> 33:26.640] Again, like I said, that's where you can get off, kind of off base.
[33:26.640 -> 33:27.480] Yeah.
[33:27.480 -> 33:29.780] You have to work really well with the other teams
[33:29.780 -> 33:31.620] and it's difficult.
[33:31.620 -> 33:36.060] And really, I think NASCAR is pushing towards
[33:36.060 -> 33:37.860] trying to get more manufacturers.
[33:37.860 -> 33:39.900] And I'll say this, I think the first team
[33:39.900 -> 33:42.280] that can go out and get their own manufacturer
[33:42.280 -> 33:45.300] is going to be in a really good spot because
[33:45.300 -> 33:49.300] you don't then have to argue with anybody else.
[33:49.300 -> 33:51.800] It goes back to having your own wind tunnel time.
[33:51.800 -> 33:57.840] Kind of like SHR and Xfinity series right now, they are pretty much the only Ford in
[33:57.840 -> 34:01.520] the Xfinity series, which means they get all that wind tunnel time.
[34:01.520 -> 34:03.680] They get to decide how and when they do things.
[34:03.680 -> 34:06.920] But yeah, to answer your question, I mean, it all comes from the manufacturer.
[34:07.080 -> 34:10.000] It's all agreed upon on the setups and the parameters that
[34:10.000 -> 34:13.160] go into setting those aero maps.
[34:13.200 -> 34:16.880] But it's all from the manufacturer nowadays.
[34:17.240 -> 34:21.960] Is that when we talked to, who did we talk to?
[34:21.960 -> 34:25.200] We were talking about, we talked to Jar.R. Hildebrand and he was saying
[34:25.200 -> 34:30.040] that the PME guys would show up with the same manufacturer AeroMap and still kick everybody's
[34:30.040 -> 34:34.760] butt with stuff. Is that one of those things where you guys can take the AeroMap as a suggestion
[34:34.760 -> 34:38.600] and throw it out the window and say, hey, we want to do this instead? Or does it, everybody
[34:38.600 -> 34:42.400] kind of aligns on the map like you're saying and comes in similarly set?
[34:42.400 -> 34:46.000] No, I think everybody's got kind of their own
[34:53.200 -> 34:54.720] flavor and way of doing things. Obviously, really the underneath of the body with a spec underbody,
[34:58.560 -> 35:04.640] I'm going to say, I could be wrong here, but I'm going to say for the most part, everybody has found how to optimize this underbody the way it's going to be. We've had probably three,
[35:04.640 -> 35:05.660] three and a half years of development on this underbody now. There's gonna be. We've had probably three, three and a half years
[35:05.660 -> 35:08.140] of development on this underbody now.
[35:08.140 -> 35:10.840] There's nothing, you're not gonna get these massive swings
[35:10.840 -> 35:13.060] in performance on the underbody.
[35:13.060 -> 35:17.140] And the overbody is really so vanilla and numb now
[35:17.140 -> 35:19.640] that most of your performance comes from the underbody.
[35:19.640 -> 35:22.160] So you can go out and make some swings
[35:22.160 -> 35:24.640] and designs and things like that.
[35:24.640 -> 35:29.260] And you're probably not gonna get as far off from your original arrow map
[35:29.260 -> 35:30.860] as maybe you would a couple years ago.
[35:30.860 -> 35:34.460] We have seen, there are scans that you share from team to team,
[35:34.460 -> 35:37.300] and they can be surprisingly different.
[35:37.300 -> 35:40.860] It's just how you, again, are you willing to risk that,
[35:40.860 -> 35:43.700] knowing how much is helping or hurting you?
[35:43.700 -> 35:47.040] I think the one question I did have is you kind of talk about you guys get the scans
[35:47.040 -> 35:51.560] and you see that some people are doing some different things.
[35:51.560 -> 35:56.500] Is that something that you guys will go throw into your models or you'll go simulate and
[35:56.500 -> 36:00.920] see if it's worth kind of trying and rolling off the truck with that maybe for a future
[36:00.920 -> 36:08.880] weekend or is there something else that you guys will do with what you learn on track, plug that back into your simulations and then tie that back into what maybe is coming for
[36:08.880 -> 36:13.600] the next track of that type or next race of that type? Yeah, for sure. So obviously the wind tunnel
[36:13.600 -> 36:28.040] hours are limited, like I said, to 100 hours per year for each manufacturer. The CFD hours are limited to 100 runs per team per month. So there is a lot of CFD available.
[36:28.040 -> 36:34.400] Again, most of that CFD has to run through the manufacturer. They have all the computing power,
[36:34.400 -> 36:41.720] but there's a lot more freedoms for teams to go out and test certain ideas, things they see on
[36:41.720 -> 36:46.020] even other manufacturer cars, not only the ones within our own camp.
[36:46.020 -> 36:48.280] So there is a lot of testing.
[36:48.280 -> 36:51.720] And obviously with the limited testing,
[36:51.720 -> 36:53.920] not only on the track,
[36:53.920 -> 36:58.080] we can't even go out and do on-track testing
[36:58.080 -> 36:59.320] that is going to prove,
[36:59.320 -> 37:03.000] even if the wind tunnel or the CFD things
[37:03.000 -> 37:04.760] are something the driver's like,
[37:04.760 -> 37:07.640] but there's, where was I going with that?
[37:12.840 -> 37:15.720] The train of thought left the station and you were not on it.
[37:17.640 -> 37:20.240] I had it. I had a whole good point there.
[37:22.920 -> 37:24.720] I do that. That's old age.
[37:25.000 -> 37:27.000] I do that. That's old age. Oh, all the time. I do it all the time.
[37:27.000 -> 37:30.000] Oh my god.
[37:30.000 -> 37:33.000] The CFD.
[37:33.000 -> 37:40.000] I'm trying to think.
[37:40.000 -> 37:43.000] Do you want to say something?
[37:43.000 -> 37:45.800] It's okay. We can come back to it. It's okay.
[37:45.800 -> 37:47.540] We can come back to it if you think of it.
[37:47.540 -> 37:50.960] And then if it comes into your head.
[37:50.960 -> 37:51.960] Yeah.
[37:51.960 -> 37:52.960] Yeah.
[37:52.960 -> 37:53.960] All right.
[37:53.960 -> 37:54.960] It's okay.
[37:54.960 -> 37:59.080] If it comes back, we can jump now to the, we can jump now to the question on the driver
[37:59.080 -> 38:00.520] and loop.
[38:00.520 -> 38:01.520] Okay.
[38:01.520 -> 38:07.260] So, you know, we've, we've talked a bit, Brian, about, you know, wind tunnel testing. We've
[38:07.260 -> 38:11.460] talked a bit about simulations and things like that, you know, rocking up to the track
[38:11.460 -> 38:15.500] with the best setup that you can. I think it makes complete sense. But, you know, in
[38:15.500 -> 38:20.860] January of this year, there was a rules change, right, which limits the team's investment
[38:20.860 -> 38:27.440] into the driver and loop. So, in the sim simulators. So has this been affected by any of this as well?
[38:27.440 -> 38:31.760] And a second question, does the reliance on the manufacturer
[38:31.760 -> 38:34.400] and their driver-in-loop become more significant now
[38:34.400 -> 38:38.600] than it has in the past as those are not regulated?
[38:38.600 -> 38:41.640] Yeah, I mean, for most of the NASCAR teams,
[38:41.640 -> 38:45.680] the manufacturers have had owned the you know, the simulators that
[38:45.680 -> 38:53.200] the drivers went to weekly. And for the most part, I think those parts and pieces were already in
[38:53.200 -> 38:58.080] place where I think this rule is more of something to manage the future and not necessarily the
[38:58.080 -> 39:05.000] present. So they, you know, again, it's those parts, those simulators are all run by the manufacturer
[39:05.000 -> 39:07.120] here in the Charlotte area.
[39:07.120 -> 39:13.240] The drivers go once or twice a week, depending on, you know, what tests are coming up or
[39:13.240 -> 39:16.160] what tracks, you know, if someone likes a track.
[39:16.160 -> 39:20.640] I've seen Kevin Harvick not go to the simulator for months at a time where we've seen, you
[39:20.640 -> 39:25.940] know, our rookies then take his time and go multiple times a week.
[39:28.580 -> 39:32.260] I think it's essential for a team. The amount of options that these simulators have
[39:32.260 -> 39:36.960] is unbelievable from changing driver mirrors
[39:36.960 -> 39:40.020] to massive swings in the suspension setups
[39:40.020 -> 39:41.340] and aerodynamic setups.
[39:41.340 -> 39:46.280] So you kind of have to balance your realistic expectations
[39:47.320 -> 39:49.080] on what you get out of them, in my opinion, though.
[39:49.080 -> 39:52.660] I'm not sure on the other series how well they work.
[39:53.760 -> 39:56.080] I do feel like that sometimes you just need
[39:56.080 -> 39:58.980] to take a deep breath and maybe step back
[39:58.980 -> 40:02.560] outside of maybe the rhythm that the driver is getting,
[40:02.560 -> 40:06.000] the comfort level of just driving on that racetrack,
[40:06.000 -> 40:10.200] and maybe not worry about the performance side sometimes
[40:10.200 -> 40:14.240] and just let your simulators at the shop,
[40:14.240 -> 40:16.360] simulation models, your performance models,
[40:16.360 -> 40:17.880] kind of dictate what you put on the car
[40:17.880 -> 40:19.680] and not so much what the driver feels
[40:20.840 -> 40:23.640] in the simulator that they drive at the manufacturer.
[40:23.640 -> 40:28.280] So it's a constant battle on deciding how much emphasis
[40:28.280 -> 40:30.260] you want to put on what you learn from there,
[40:30.260 -> 40:31.980] but they are incredibly important
[40:31.980 -> 40:34.520] and the teams use them constantly.
[40:34.520 -> 40:37.000] Yeah, and I think maybe just to piggyback on that point,
[40:37.000 -> 40:40.640] I mean, if we kind of jump across series as well,
[40:40.640 -> 40:44.080] I think that in Formula One, for instance,
[40:44.080 -> 40:47.720] there are some teams who put a lot more emphasis
[40:47.720 -> 40:51.480] into driver in the loop than other teams do.
[40:51.480 -> 40:56.620] But it's different because in Formula One, barring a sprint weekend, you've got a lot
[40:56.620 -> 41:02.360] more practice time to dial things out and to really use that driver sensor, you know,
[41:02.360 -> 41:07.320] to help you kind of find the pace. But yeah, I think it's,
[41:07.320 -> 41:10.400] I see the conundrum in NASCAR honestly,
[41:10.400 -> 41:13.760] because it's like, you don't have that practice time either,
[41:13.760 -> 41:16.260] but then you've got the driver and the loop stuff going on.
[41:16.260 -> 41:17.560] So what do you do?
[41:17.560 -> 41:19.120] Yeah, it's tough, man.
[41:19.120 -> 41:23.420] The no practice time has made it not only difficult
[41:23.420 -> 41:28.840] just to find performance on a weekly basis, but if you get behind in the series,
[41:28.840 -> 41:30.800] it doesn't take weeks to find a solution.
[41:30.800 -> 41:34.000] It could take months, it could easily take years.
[41:34.000 -> 41:36.980] And that's just hoping that the manufacturer themselves
[41:36.980 -> 41:39.480] are doing their job in supplying you with a good platform
[41:39.480 -> 41:40.440] to begin with as well.
[41:40.440 -> 41:42.620] So it's a really difficult situation,
[41:43.840 -> 41:49.320] on the NASCAR side, trying to, uh, hone in your car, hone in your platform and, and, uh, you
[41:49.320 -> 41:50.960] know, by performance as an organization.
[41:51.000 -> 41:51.240] Yeah.
[41:51.240 -> 41:54.560] I was doing some stats research and I think you guys are the series with the
[41:54.560 -> 41:58.760] least amount of practice hours in the world for any of the series.
[41:58.800 -> 42:00.340] I think it's 25 hours a year.
[42:00.340 -> 42:00.920] So now.
[42:01.120 -> 42:01.520] Yeah.
[42:01.780 -> 42:02.160] Yeah.
[42:02.200 -> 42:04.720] I think that's the shortest amount per year.
[42:04.720 -> 42:05.280] And I mean,
[42:05.280 -> 42:11.520] and that's for perspective too, you guys do 36 races in 39 weeks and you only get 25 hours
[42:11.520 -> 42:15.800] of practice for all of that. And there's no just go film for two days, like in formula
[42:15.800 -> 42:21.460] one. I don't know if a lot of people realize that. And it's, it's kind of crazy because
[42:21.460 -> 42:25.360] I think like OBS and I are very used to, you have free practice one,
[42:25.360 -> 42:30.320] which is a lot of test parts, a lot of maybe arrow rakes, some flow viz, try some stuff out.
[42:30.320 -> 42:35.360] Free practice two, you run some quali sims, you run some long sims, you kind of get a feel for
[42:35.360 -> 42:39.760] things that you can take back and, and kind of extrapolate from. And then free practice three
[42:39.760 -> 42:44.560] is kind of the finishing touches of everything. And, and here it is off the truck into tech,
[42:44.560 -> 42:46.060] which is then into park for May
[42:46.060 -> 42:47.500] impound, whatever you want to call it.
[42:47.780 -> 42:49.060] You roll onto the track and go.
[42:49.460 -> 42:51.860] I definitely miss the good old days of practice for sure.
[42:51.880 -> 42:56.380] They were, um, you know, it was, it was a lot of, a lot of slinging
[42:56.380 -> 43:01.460] tools and slinging Springs and, um, unfortunately, but fun fixing stuff
[43:01.460 -> 43:05.120] sometimes, so, uh, yeah, hopefully, hopefully in the future we can see some more
[43:05.120 -> 43:08.160] practice time in the cup series, but you know, it's, it is a good money
[43:08.160 -> 43:10.400] saver for sure that it's, it's hard to argue that point.
[43:10.720 -> 43:13.160] I was going to say, I had another question with kind of the manufacturer.
[43:13.160 -> 43:18.000] Has it been hard to kind of go rely on the manufacturer more than you have in
[43:18.000 -> 43:21.240] the past, because I feel like in, in kind of generations past of the car, the
[43:21.240 -> 43:25.600] teams are kind of very self-sufficient and self-servicing.
[43:25.600 -> 43:29.000] They kind of do everything that they need themselves and kind of really only use the
[43:29.000 -> 43:33.740] manufacturer for limited things, whereas now it's a lot more heavily involved.
[43:33.740 -> 43:36.480] On the manufacturer side, has that been kind of hard or difficult?
[43:36.480 -> 43:39.040] Have you seen kind of difficulties with that?
[43:39.040 -> 43:46.700] Yeah, it's like I said, for us, when I was at Stuart Haas, you know, forever, you still had to rely on the manufacturer.
[43:46.700 -> 43:49.140] Like I said, they had all the CFD computing power.
[43:49.160 -> 43:55.020] They were a big driver in the development of the car initially, even back in the metal body days.
[43:55.480 -> 44:04.420] But there were so many ways for a team to go out with themselves and find performance, whether that be in a black and white way or a fully legal way, you know.
[44:06.680 -> 44:10.560] But nowadays you are just reliant. There's all your information, like we said, has to go
[44:10.560 -> 44:14.000] through the manufacturer and all the information is seen by all of the other
[44:14.000 -> 44:18.080] teams within that manufacturer. So, and then again, like as we have talked about
[44:18.080 -> 44:23.520] multiple times, no practice, it's just your avenues of solving problems are so
[44:23.520 -> 44:25.000] slim now.
[44:25.000 -> 44:28.000] And, you know, first of all, if you don't get along,
[44:28.000 -> 44:31.160] you know, I mean, we talk about driver personalities, right?
[44:31.160 -> 44:33.200] Well, each team has their own personality.
[44:33.200 -> 44:35.640] You look at Team Penske, they're buttoned up,
[44:35.640 -> 44:39.280] you know, nice collars, you know, freshly shaven.
[44:39.280 -> 44:41.920] I shaved this the first time I shaved in like two weeks.
[44:41.920 -> 44:42.760] Yeah.
[44:42.760 -> 44:44.840] You look at Stuart Haas, right?
[44:44.840 -> 44:45.760] And they're the
[44:45.760 -> 44:50.480] t-shirt and jeans kind of team. And so you have two different ways of going about winning a
[44:50.480 -> 44:55.440] championship. And now you have to collectively come together and work together in solving these
[44:55.440 -> 45:02.320] problems. So it's fun. It's definitely more difficult. It has caused more arguments than
[45:02.320 -> 45:05.880] anything else, for sure. So we've kind of talked about at the start of a weekend,
[45:05.880 -> 45:08.240] there's no practice, but then how does,
[45:08.240 -> 45:09.940] and maybe you might not be able to answer this,
[45:09.940 -> 45:10.900] but I would love to hear your thoughts.
[45:10.900 -> 45:14.480] How does strategy unfold in a typical cup series weekend
[45:14.480 -> 45:17.180] with kind of all of these constraints around the cars?
[45:17.180 -> 45:19.560] And for those that also don't know,
[45:19.560 -> 45:21.360] NASCAR is a fueling series.
[45:21.360 -> 45:23.180] So you do refuel on each stop.
[45:23.180 -> 45:27.120] You can change up to two tires, no tires, four tires.
[45:27.120 -> 45:29.920] And then there are things like an overcut and undercut,
[45:29.920 -> 45:32.120] even though it's kind of neutralized a little bit
[45:32.120 -> 45:34.920] with the way pit stops are done in NASCAR.
[45:34.920 -> 45:38.800] And then also the influence of that slipstream, the draft,
[45:38.800 -> 45:40.680] keeping with the cars around you.
[45:40.680 -> 45:43.880] How does that unfold in a typical weekend?
[45:43.880 -> 45:48.000] And has there been any sort of tools that has changed how you kind of
[45:48.000 -> 45:51.920] approach that from a setup and on track strategy weekend in a, in a weekend?
[45:51.980 -> 45:56.400] Well, I think, you know, obviously we're kind of running five, six, seven, eight
[45:56.400 -> 46:01.160] mini races within each race when it comes to a stint.
[46:01.800 -> 46:06.880] Um, so, and then you mix that in with in with something else that's kind of unique, whether people
[46:06.880 -> 46:10.140] like it or don't, is we have stages in our races.
[46:10.140 -> 46:16.080] So dictating on when you pit, whether before, during, or after those stages really influence
[46:16.080 -> 46:20.060] where you're going to end up on these predetermined cautions, right?
[46:20.060 -> 46:27.200] Once you head into a race with these stages outside of something crazy. I mean they really influence when
[46:27.200 -> 46:32.720] and how you're going to do something throughout the entirety of the race. Now if you end up way
[46:32.720 -> 46:37.520] back, you know obviously got to flip the script, maybe do two tires to get track position, but
[46:37.520 -> 46:41.760] it is so tough to pass with these cars. You're just constantly trying to do what's best to get
[46:41.760 -> 46:49.080] ahead of the other ones, even if the tire deg is so high that you may lose some position, you know, if you can gain
[46:49.080 -> 46:54.740] 10 just by taking two tires, but you might only lose five, you know, that's a huge driver
[46:54.740 -> 46:56.700] in how a crew chief's called the race.
[46:56.700 -> 47:05.080] So I think paired with the SMT data and watching other drivers, how they're running, where they're running, how hard they're
[47:05.080 -> 47:12.040] running, you know, really is kind of is, is how you, it influences your race as it goes
[47:12.040 -> 47:13.040] on.
[47:13.040 -> 47:19.160] You know, it's, it's the SMT stuff is kind of unique because, you know, we can see the
[47:19.160 -> 47:20.960] answer to the problem basically.
[47:20.960 -> 47:24.600] Right now, this is, I always, I always used to hate when my teacher was like, show your
[47:24.600 -> 47:30.640] work, why? Now, I always used to hate when my teacher was like, show your work. Why? Who cares? But now as you get SMT, you realize like, I can see the end result,
[47:30.640 -> 47:35.160] but we don't have their setups. You know, there's a lot of things influencing how and
[47:35.160 -> 47:39.960] why the driver is driving this way, but we do have how maybe the fastest driver is driving.
[47:39.960 -> 47:45.120] Now, you can go say, hey, driver, can you drive the car like this?
[47:45.120 -> 47:50.160] Or do we have to change our strategy for you able to do that?
[47:50.160 -> 47:54.160] So it's a constant battle of babysitting with the driver and trying to figure out how to
[47:54.160 -> 47:59.020] be ahead of everybody else at the right moment when it comes with the stages.
[47:59.020 -> 48:03.400] So the stages really kind of, I don't know, they kind of mess up a lot of stuff for me,
[48:03.400 -> 48:05.680] but it is road courses, you know,
[48:06.640 -> 48:10.640] you can see these guys and now we've just added, you know, the cautions back at the last race this
[48:10.640 -> 48:15.840] year. But, you know, if you come in and you can pit two laps before the stage ends, you come get
[48:15.840 -> 48:22.320] your tires and then the rest of the field has to come down. You can hop 10, 20 people just by when
[48:22.320 -> 48:26.160] and how you pit with these stages. So obviously you can't go lap down.
[48:26.160 -> 48:27.640] So there's places like super speedways,
[48:27.640 -> 48:31.600] road courses, Pocono, maybe Michigan at some times,
[48:31.600 -> 48:33.760] depending on where you're at on the track.
[48:33.760 -> 48:37.600] But really, that's what dictates the strategies in these races.
[48:37.600 -> 48:39.720] Brian, I'm glad you mentioned the SMT data,
[48:39.720 -> 48:41.600] because that kind of leads us perfectly
[48:41.600 -> 48:44.080] into our next question.
[48:44.080 -> 48:45.060] You know, Molly and I were-
[48:45.060 -> 48:46.320] I think you're segways here.
[48:46.320 -> 48:47.900] Yes, perfect.
[48:47.900 -> 48:51.200] So Molly and I are, you know, we're data nerds.
[48:51.200 -> 48:53.800] And we talk quite a bit, you know,
[48:53.800 -> 48:56.440] in some of the other series about the availability of data
[48:56.440 -> 48:59.520] and what you can do to help drive your strategy,
[48:59.520 -> 49:01.920] but also how you can use that data
[49:01.920 -> 49:05.000] to kind of influence between race,
[49:07.080 -> 49:08.900] you know, strategy decisions,
[49:08.900 -> 49:11.360] pre-race strategy decisions or whatever.
[49:11.360 -> 49:13.920] You know, you've got data on the competition
[49:13.920 -> 49:16.640] so you can then theoretically model, you know,
[49:16.640 -> 49:18.560] their potential performance in the next race
[49:18.560 -> 49:21.320] and then maybe what you might wanna do strategically.
[49:21.320 -> 49:23.020] Can you kind of talk a little bit about that?
[49:23.020 -> 49:29.440] Like, what's it like, you already talked a bit about what it's like during a race. What's it like in between races?
[49:29.440 -> 49:34.760] You know, how can you maybe use that to also influence your simulations as well?
[49:34.760 -> 49:42.760] Yeah. So, I mean, with the SMTA, people don't know, you get lap time, mile per hour, throttle,
[49:42.760 -> 49:45.080] brake and steering inputs from every car in the field.
[49:45.080 -> 49:46.320] In real time.
[49:46.320 -> 49:47.480] In real time.
[49:47.480 -> 49:52.520] And we can also go back and look at a lot of this data as well.
[49:52.520 -> 49:55.560] So as you're preparing for the next race,
[49:55.560 -> 49:57.360] you can go to the last time you were there.
[49:57.360 -> 49:59.720] Whether or not it changes that much,
[49:59.720 -> 50:01.960] it's still great data to have.
[50:01.960 -> 50:04.520] And then you also can see the line, too,
[50:04.520 -> 50:06.360] which is very important, not just.
[50:06.360 -> 50:07.560] Oh, that's big.
[50:07.560 -> 50:12.560] Yeah, so again, during the race or even for rookies
[50:12.760 -> 50:15.800] or people that maybe hadn't been to these racetracks,
[50:15.800 -> 50:20.400] there's a lot to learn just by copying this SMT data
[50:20.400 -> 50:21.580] in the simulators.
[50:22.760 -> 50:25.120] You can go back after a race and say,
[50:25.120 -> 50:26.760] okay, our car ran like this,
[50:26.760 -> 50:31.080] the driver said that it wouldn't perform in these areas,
[50:31.080 -> 50:33.000] here's the SMT data,
[50:33.000 -> 50:35.080] here's the guy that put the fastest laps down,
[50:35.080 -> 50:36.680] or here's the guy that won,
[50:36.680 -> 50:41.320] how do we change our setup or our parameters
[50:41.320 -> 50:42.720] to try to best suit a car
[50:42.720 -> 50:44.640] that can drive in this particular way?
[50:45.680 -> 50:51.060] So there is, like I said, it's, it's interesting to have the answer.
[50:51.520 -> 50:54.900] You know, it's, it's frustrating to, to also have the answer, knowing
[50:55.340 -> 50:58.080] that you're, you're trying to find out, you're trying to see the
[50:58.080 -> 50:59.340] work that they did to get there.
[50:59.820 -> 51:07.520] Um, so it's, it's, it's weird that the series that has no data or sensors on the entire car and then we get this,
[51:08.240 -> 51:13.200] you know, something so important as how the driver is driving the race car. We're just handed that
[51:13.200 -> 51:18.960] in real time or at any point that we need it. Yeah, and then you have F1 in the world
[51:19.760 -> 51:25.780] who there's all of these sensors on the cars in the world, and hopefully this won't get them
[51:25.780 -> 51:26.780] taken down.
[51:26.780 -> 51:30.120] A lot of teams are actually accessing their competitors' data through the same portal
[51:30.120 -> 51:35.480] that OBS and I go through called Fast F1 to kind of pull and analyze some data from their
[51:35.480 -> 51:36.480] competitors.
[51:36.480 -> 51:40.520] And it's kind of, like you say, it's kind of almost ironic that it's the series that
[51:40.520 -> 51:47.160] has no sensors, gets all of this amazing, incredible advanced telemetry in real time and historically available.
[51:47.160 -> 51:51.920] And then you've got other series where the teams are doing the same thing that we are
[51:51.920 -> 51:55.880] in accessing the same data portals and back channels that we are to try and understand
[51:55.880 -> 51:56.880] what their competition's doing.
[51:56.880 -> 52:01.960] I think the fun part when it comes to the data too, is the amount of emphasis that's
[52:01.960 -> 52:10.960] putting on the analytical side, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Just really understanding the racetracks and the trends and whys and hows
[52:10.960 -> 52:17.040] has become insanely important to every team and every series in the world, right?
[52:17.760 -> 52:21.520] It's really fun to see the NASCAR side kind of hiring these people.
[52:21.520 -> 52:24.320] I remember the first time we had one guy come in, what's he do?
[52:24.320 -> 52:31.040] Oh, he's just gonna monitor like trends. Really? Like, yes, man. Like this is like a big, a big thing. Like,
[52:31.040 -> 52:36.640] I mean, you could do, crew chiefs had papers on, you know, the strategies on how they normally
[52:36.640 -> 52:41.040] unfold the, you know, the laps at which people normally pit. I mean, all of this information,
[52:41.040 -> 52:47.660] that's one thing that's so impressive with CUPS here crew chiefs, and I'm sure team principals and F1 and all these,
[52:47.660 -> 52:50.940] is the amount of information that they have to digest
[52:50.940 -> 52:53.360] and know of at just the flip of a switch
[52:53.360 -> 52:58.200] is mind boggling to me how they're able to control
[52:58.200 -> 53:00.120] and organize all that in their brains
[53:00.120 -> 53:02.800] and use it in as quick of a fashion as they do.
[53:02.800 -> 53:08.000] So is that kind of a trend in the sport now with respect to like AI and things like that,
[53:08.000 -> 53:13.520] that, you know, you've got all this data and you've got people looking at analytical trends,
[53:13.520 -> 53:19.680] you can do predictive analytics as well. You know, I mean, I would imagine AI is kind of
[53:19.680 -> 53:24.240] entering the sport a little bit as well. It's something we talk about in, you know, Formula 1.
[53:25.600 -> 53:32.000] this sport a little bit as well. It's something we talk about in Formula One. I think it's also come comes up. It is an Indy car, right? Molly, I think in strategies, strategy simulations and
[53:32.000 -> 53:37.360] things like that. Is that something in NASCAR as well? In my personal experience, I have seen very
[53:37.360 -> 53:48.320] little of it, which again, I think we're starting to see this new era of technology outside of race car technology.
[53:48.320 -> 53:56.320] You know, how do we use this information, this analytical data? How do we try to predict
[53:56.320 -> 54:01.280] things before they happen? I think that's the next step, especially in the Cup Series, where
[54:01.280 -> 54:05.640] it is a very spec series. I think a lot of the technology, the cool
[54:05.640 -> 54:14.140] technology that we've seen in the past has been taken away for issues when it comes to
[54:14.140 -> 54:20.900] spending and again, being able to have more teams, more sponsors for longer. But the technology
[54:20.900 -> 54:25.120] side that isn't policed right now is that very side is, you know,
[54:25.120 -> 54:29.040] the stuff that you don't put on the car. And I think that's where you're going to start seeing
[54:29.040 -> 54:35.200] these teams really make giant steps in performance on the track, not only calling races, but
[54:35.200 -> 54:40.320] understanding how their car is performing throughout a race. Yeah. Is there someone,
[54:40.320 -> 54:44.320] you were talking about how the crew chiefs have their sheet available and kind of their intel
[54:44.320 -> 54:48.760] sheets. Is there somebody, and I know that the on-track personnel are limited, is there somebody back
[54:48.760 -> 54:52.520] in like the war room at the factory, in your experience, that's maybe feeding additional
[54:52.520 -> 54:55.720] trends to them or additional things that they may need to know during a race?
[54:55.720 -> 54:56.720] Yes.
[54:56.720 -> 54:57.720] Oh, yeah.
[54:57.720 -> 55:01.920] So the war room that, you know, the war rooms I've seen have upwards anywhere from 20 to
[55:01.920 -> 55:06.800] 40 people in them sifting through every bit of data,
[55:06.800 -> 55:11.100] going through, punching in the simulation models
[55:11.100 -> 55:14.040] on their computer, trying to figure out how to fix the car,
[55:14.040 -> 55:18.120] looking through SMT, looking at past races
[55:18.120 -> 55:20.980] and the trends they've seen,
[55:20.980 -> 55:23.600] to where they can quickly inform the crew chief
[55:23.600 -> 55:25.760] on what might be the best decision as well.
[55:26.240 -> 55:31.080] It's just it's amazing how much information there is and how much isn't used.
[55:31.080 -> 55:35.360] Right. So it's just people trying to learn on how to best use it.
[55:35.360 -> 55:37.680] And I think that's something new that we're seeing in the sport.
[55:37.720 -> 55:41.920] Yeah, I feel like that's information efficiency is going to be the next era.
[55:42.480 -> 55:43.960] Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
[55:43.960 -> 55:46.000] Information engineering. I mean, you know, for, information engineering, I mean, you know,
[55:46.000 -> 55:48.000] for the longest time, I mean, you think about
[55:48.000 -> 55:50.000] professional football,
[55:50.000 -> 55:52.000] right, in the US.
[55:52.000 -> 55:54.000] I mean, you know, nobody would have
[55:54.000 -> 55:56.000] ever thought about hiring
[55:56.000 -> 55:58.000] data analytics
[55:58.000 -> 56:00.000] people or baseball or
[56:00.000 -> 56:02.000] anything like that, but, you know,
[56:02.000 -> 56:04.000] any time you have humans
[56:04.000 -> 56:05.720] taking strategy calls
[56:05.720 -> 56:10.720] or doing things, there's can sometimes be a pattern there,
[56:10.880 -> 56:11.720] right?
[56:11.720 -> 56:14.380] And you can use that analytics to develop, you know,
[56:14.380 -> 56:16.400] predictive algorithms and things like that.
[56:16.400 -> 56:17.560] And you're right.
[56:17.560 -> 56:22.040] I mean, we, most, most series, as far as I know,
[56:22.040 -> 56:25.120] I mean, formula one, I, is doing a really good job of
[56:25.120 -> 56:31.280] figuring out what to do with the data. But it's just data overload. I mean, they've got so much
[56:31.280 -> 56:36.400] data and they're still learning how to use that data better. Yeah.
[56:36.400 -> 56:40.960] So one thing that's also really unique about NASCAR is you guys run on a bunch of different
[56:40.960 -> 56:47.000] disciplines. You run on ovals, you run on rovals, half road course, half ovals, you run on road courses,
[56:47.000 -> 56:50.480] street courses, and within that kind of oval,
[56:50.480 -> 56:53.900] there's a whole subset of different disciplines,
[56:53.900 -> 56:55.640] of short tracks, and intermediates,
[56:55.640 -> 56:58.040] high speed intermediates, super speed ways.
[56:58.040 -> 57:03.160] How does the setup change from kind of discipline
[57:03.160 -> 57:04.040] to discipline?
[57:04.040 -> 57:06.000] Is it more seamless with the Gen 7
[57:06.000 -> 57:10.260] or is it much different than the Gen 6 was in the past?
[57:10.260 -> 57:14.380] No, I mean, for this car for sure, it's far more seamless.
[57:14.380 -> 57:16.500] You know, you talk about the aerodynamic side.
[57:16.500 -> 57:18.460] Previously, these bodies were metal
[57:18.460 -> 57:20.100] and they were welded together.
[57:20.100 -> 57:23.460] So if you wanted to take a, you know,
[57:23.460 -> 57:25.480] a road course car to a super speedway, entire body would have to get cut off. If you wanted to take a, um, you know, a road course car to super speedway,
[57:25.580 -> 57:27.240] entire body would have to get cut off.
[57:27.520 -> 57:31.320] If you want to take an intermediate car to a road course, entire
[57:31.320 -> 57:32.880] body would have to get up, get cut off.
[57:33.280 -> 57:35.360] With this new car, it's a lot more nuts and bolts where you're
[57:35.360 -> 57:36.360] loosening and turning it.
[57:36.360 -> 57:40.360] It's far more intricate than that, but it doesn't take, but maybe two or
[57:40.360 -> 57:46.080] three days to shift the body from one discipline to another. When it comes to the suspension,
[57:47.200 -> 57:53.280] little bit easier. You know, these teams all have departments that put together these suspensions
[57:53.280 -> 58:00.000] on jigs and where the crew members can just simply take them off carts and bolt them on. So
[58:00.000 -> 58:04.560] with the Rogue Horse, with the camber differences, right, you go into oval, you have a lot of,
[58:05.520 -> 58:08.880] you know, a lot of camber on one side and that's what, so you have to put different
[58:08.880 -> 58:13.360] lower control arms to be able to, you know, your left side tires to have the correct camber.
[58:14.480 -> 58:20.240] You know, the rear ends, they're all pretty much, you know, the same as outside of gearing. So you
[58:20.240 -> 58:30.640] can just simply come in and out with those. It is pretty seamless. It's not as difficult from the construction side of the cars as it was before.
[58:30.640 -> 58:32.640] And the setups obviously are wildly different.
[58:32.640 -> 58:36.560] You know, you guys have talked about just how cars transition.
[58:36.560 -> 58:39.760] And it's not even just road course to short track.
[58:39.760 -> 58:43.440] You just talked about the difference in intermediates where, let's say, you go to
[58:45.480 -> 58:50.320] Charlotte, which is extremely bumpy, very rough, where you have to compensate for
[58:50.320 -> 58:54.400] a track like that, and then you can go to Homestead where there's a lot of tire
[58:54.400 -> 58:58.080] degradation, where you're seeing a lot of performance loss just by the car slowing
[58:58.080 -> 59:02.840] down and the car rising up and losing the aerodynamic power. So, you know, it's
[59:02.840 -> 59:07.040] the construction side of the car is much easier now than it ever has been.
[59:07.040 -> 59:09.280] And there are a lot of options when
[59:09.280 -> 59:11.680] it comes to setups, both aerodynamically
[59:11.680 -> 59:13.640] and on the suspension side.
[59:13.640 -> 59:17.080] There are massive mounting points for the suspension
[59:17.080 -> 59:19.480] where you can move things around inches
[59:19.480 -> 59:24.680] to get the preferred vehicle performance side of things.
[59:24.680 -> 59:27.920] Composite bodies now, rather than metal body overlay,
[59:27.920 -> 59:30.080] or are they still largely sheet metal overlay?
[59:30.080 -> 59:31.320] No, it's all composite now.
[59:31.320 -> 59:34.840] There is not a single sheet metal piece on these new cars.
[59:34.840 -> 59:37.840] So they're very durable.
[59:37.840 -> 59:40.520] They are extremely expensive, but they
[59:40.520 -> 59:42.040] can go a couple of races, depending
[59:42.040 -> 59:43.320] on what happens during a race.
[59:43.320 -> 59:47.120] You can run them far more than you could an old metal body.
[59:47.120 -> 59:52.160] But previously, you ran a race car, it pretty much got a new body after every race.
[59:52.160 -> 59:57.360] So you'd have to spend a week in the fab shop, a couple days in the body shop.
[59:57.360 -> 01:00:04.500] There's a lot of babysitting going from each of those individual departments.
[01:00:04.500 -> 01:00:08.360] They would move so much because when you get plus or minus 150 you're not setting the car at zero
[01:00:08.440 -> 01:00:15.760] You're setting at 140 and so you know, you constantly have to keep up with these race cars to make sure they're there within legality. So
[01:00:16.680 -> 01:00:18.680] It's been an interesting
[01:00:18.680 -> 01:00:26.560] Transition going from especially for the people within the sport. There's so many people that had honed in their metal crafting abilities.
[01:00:26.560 -> 01:00:28.460] Some of the best metal crafters in the world
[01:00:28.460 -> 01:00:29.800] were here in the Charlotte area.
[01:00:29.800 -> 01:00:32.280] I mean, the things they did, especially in the Gen 4 body,
[01:00:32.280 -> 01:00:34.980] where you have the twisted scissors that you saw,
[01:00:34.980 -> 01:00:38.080] you know, manufacturers would send us body panels
[01:00:38.080 -> 01:00:39.500] and we would instantly be stretching
[01:00:39.500 -> 01:00:40.720] and shrinking these pieces,
[01:00:40.720 -> 01:00:43.520] whether it be mechanically with shrinkers and stretchers,
[01:00:43.520 -> 01:00:47.440] or with shrinking wheels where you're heating up the metal and then instantly cooling it
[01:00:47.440 -> 01:00:52.000] down to shrink and then trying to make it look somewhat legal so it would pass
[01:00:52.000 -> 01:00:56.120] NASCAR's eye. Not even the OSS, but just the way it looks.
[01:00:56.120 -> 01:01:01.840] So it's been an interesting transition culturally with this car for
[01:01:01.840 -> 01:01:05.880] everybody in the sport where, you know, a lot of the things,
[01:01:05.880 -> 01:01:09.240] a lot of the talents people used to have
[01:01:09.240 -> 01:01:11.320] are not necessarily needed.
[01:01:11.320 -> 01:01:12.840] What is needed is people that can work
[01:01:12.840 -> 01:01:14.800] with small tolerances and that care
[01:01:14.800 -> 01:01:16.440] about creating performance.
[01:01:16.440 -> 01:01:19.000] And it still takes good people to win races,
[01:01:19.000 -> 01:01:20.880] even though these cars are different.
[01:01:21.740 -> 01:01:24.480] And I think the old guy curmudgeon in me
[01:01:24.480 -> 01:01:26.660] is probably a little sad about all that
[01:01:26.660 -> 01:01:29.040] because you know, the old school way of doing things,
[01:01:29.040 -> 01:01:32.080] you know, working a piece of metal on an English wheel
[01:01:32.080 -> 01:01:34.160] and you know, doing all these things,
[01:01:34.160 -> 01:01:35.280] they're just, like you said,
[01:01:35.280 -> 01:01:38.480] there's so much just talent that goes into that.
[01:01:38.480 -> 01:01:40.520] And now I assume that these bodies,
[01:01:40.520 -> 01:01:43.840] I'm just guessing are molded probably, right?
[01:01:43.840 -> 01:01:44.800] Yeah.
[01:01:44.800 -> 01:01:46.800] So then, you know, you get a bunch of nerds
[01:01:46.800 -> 01:01:48.720] It's all bolt together. Yeah you just bolt everything together.
[01:01:48.720 -> 01:01:53.280] You get a bunch of nerds behind a computer just like figuring out how to do the process and then
[01:01:53.280 -> 01:01:57.440] there's just, yeah there's talent to that too but it's not with your hands anymore.
[01:01:57.440 -> 01:02:05.880] No and like I said so it's not the uniqueness of metal shaping which which is sad. You know, I think that was a really cool part
[01:02:05.880 -> 01:02:07.920] of the NASCAR Cup Series.
[01:02:07.920 -> 01:02:10.880] It is still there in the NASCAR Truck Series.
[01:02:10.880 -> 01:02:12.240] Those cars are still hand-built.
[01:02:12.240 -> 01:02:13.960] They do, you know, a lot of those bodies
[01:02:13.960 -> 01:02:16.400] come in sheets of metal.
[01:02:16.400 -> 01:02:18.800] You know, the noses are stamped, the tails are stamped,
[01:02:18.800 -> 01:02:20.360] the roofs are stamped, the sides,
[01:02:20.360 -> 01:02:21.400] and a lot of things going on there
[01:02:21.400 -> 01:02:24.020] are English-wheeled or handmade.
[01:02:24.020 -> 01:02:26.200] So it's kind of sad to see that portion
[01:02:26.200 -> 01:02:27.760] of the Cup Series leave.
[01:02:27.760 -> 01:02:30.280] But again, like I said, you can't stress enough
[01:02:30.280 -> 01:02:34.400] when we have people come in from other walks of life,
[01:02:34.400 -> 01:02:35.800] other types of mechanics,
[01:02:35.800 -> 01:02:38.260] and you ask them to adjust something
[01:02:38.260 -> 01:02:40.400] 10 or 15 thousandths of an inch.
[01:02:40.400 -> 01:02:43.640] First of all, do they freak out and get mad?
[01:02:43.640 -> 01:02:47.760] And second of all, do they understand, can they do that get mad? And second of all, do they understand can they do that because it is difficult the tools we are using
[01:02:47.760 -> 01:02:50.680] We are constantly talking about when we're constructing these cars
[01:02:50.880 -> 01:02:55.660] Or we are pushing the limits of the tooling that we have where you know
[01:02:55.660 -> 01:02:57.920] The Romer arms and the scanners, you know
[01:02:57.920 -> 01:03:04.560] You could you could scan a piece twice and when you're asking for a tolerance of ten thousands with these body hangers
[01:03:04.880 -> 01:03:05.320] It could be within ten thousands different, you know on the Romer scanner And when you're asking for a tolerance of 10,000s with these body hangers,
[01:03:05.320 -> 01:03:07.480] it could be within 10,000s different,
[01:03:07.480 -> 01:03:09.000] you know, on the Roamer or scanner.
[01:03:09.000 -> 01:03:12.280] So it's really difficult to find people
[01:03:12.280 -> 01:03:15.640] that are able to understand and prioritize,
[01:03:15.640 -> 01:03:18.120] you know, the small window that we're working with
[01:03:18.120 -> 01:03:19.680] and the amount of performance that you're able to find
[01:03:19.680 -> 01:03:20.500] when you use it.
[01:03:20.500 -> 01:03:22.840] Brian, now previously you were talking about
[01:03:22.840 -> 01:03:28.880] all the different setup options that you have and things like that, you know, and, and, and we also previously talked about the
[01:03:28.880 -> 01:03:33.400] new gen seven car having the fully independent rear.
[01:03:33.400 -> 01:03:38.840] I'm guessing it was a solid rear before, before it was okay.
[01:03:38.840 -> 01:03:42.580] So then, you know, what sort of setup options do you have now?
[01:03:42.580 -> 01:03:46.380] You talked about suspension, pickup points, locations, things like that.
[01:03:47.280 -> 01:03:50.640] And how much better is that, say,
[01:03:50.640 -> 01:03:52.920] do you feel the benefits of having
[01:03:52.920 -> 01:03:54.680] that rear independent suspension
[01:03:54.680 -> 01:03:56.080] as far as setup flexibility,
[01:03:56.080 -> 01:03:59.680] more so for road courses than you do for ovals?
[01:03:59.680 -> 01:04:01.680] Or is it just kind of across the board
[01:04:01.680 -> 01:04:03.820] it's good for all track types?
[01:04:04.920 -> 01:04:06.120] Yeah, I mean, previously,
[01:04:06.120 -> 01:04:09.200] and it's still used in the truck and Xfinity series,
[01:04:09.200 -> 01:04:10.840] it's a four nine inch rear end.
[01:04:10.840 -> 01:04:13.160] I mean, it's based off decades of year old technology,
[01:04:13.160 -> 01:04:14.000] right?
[01:04:14.000 -> 01:04:16.920] But these parts and pieces, specifically the rear ends,
[01:04:16.920 -> 01:04:18.160] they were very modern.
[01:04:18.160 -> 01:04:20.640] There was sleeves that you could adjust cambers
[01:04:20.640 -> 01:04:22.640] and toes fairly quickly.
[01:04:22.640 -> 01:04:24.780] We weren't heating up these housings
[01:04:24.780 -> 01:04:25.760] and cooling them
[01:04:25.760 -> 01:04:31.880] down to get to the setups that we want. So, when you talk about going from the solid rear
[01:04:31.880 -> 01:04:38.680] axle to the independent rear, it wasn't like we were dealing with a legit 1970s rear end
[01:04:38.680 -> 01:04:47.580] here. It was a highly tuned piece of equipment. And with that, these cars don't necessarily see,
[01:04:48.500 -> 01:04:50.600] especially now with the no ride height rule,
[01:04:50.600 -> 01:04:52.640] cars go through tech inspection at the same height
[01:04:52.640 -> 01:04:55.580] to make sure that suspension and body parameters
[01:04:55.580 -> 01:04:58.060] are in the right location, but after that,
[01:04:58.060 -> 01:04:59.900] you can set the car wherever.
[01:04:59.900 -> 01:05:02.200] And with the no ride height rule,
[01:05:02.200 -> 01:05:07.280] these cars are seeing far less dynamic movement, far less travel during a race.
[01:05:07.280 -> 01:05:10.440] So when you set these toes, these cambers,
[01:05:10.440 -> 01:05:13.520] it's not like they're adjusting a lot with travel
[01:05:13.520 -> 01:05:15.200] as you go around this racetrack,
[01:05:15.200 -> 01:05:16.860] outside of like you said,
[01:05:18.000 -> 01:05:20.840] the road courses where now you aren't seeing
[01:05:20.840 -> 01:05:23.120] a running over curb,
[01:05:23.120 -> 01:05:26.160] have such an upset with the race car. And I think that's why
[01:05:26.160 -> 01:05:31.760] a lot of people are, you know, that's one little tiny part of why people aren't enjoying maybe the
[01:05:31.760 -> 01:05:36.560] road courses now is because before they were driving these dump trucks that were, you know,
[01:05:37.360 -> 01:05:42.240] it's really what they were. They were just very poor handling, tireless, hard dump trucks.
[01:05:42.240 -> 01:05:47.280] They take like three to five days, business days to turn. Yeah.
[01:05:47.280 -> 01:05:53.340] And so, you know, that is a very big portion of, you know, the, the driver's just having
[01:05:53.340 -> 01:05:58.480] so much more grip and a better feel at these road courses is, is the independent rear and
[01:05:58.480 -> 01:06:05.660] not upsetting the car. You know, there are some places where we do see some, some high, and I'm going to say
[01:06:05.660 -> 01:06:11.820] quote because, you know, for us nowadays, you know, half an inch of travel or dynamic
[01:06:11.820 -> 01:06:12.820] movement is a lot.
[01:06:12.820 -> 01:06:17.380] And, you know, Martinsville this week, you'll see a lot of transition going into the corner,
[01:06:17.380 -> 01:06:21.180] hard on the brakes, turning, slamming on the gas in the, you know, the front end, picking
[01:06:21.180 -> 01:06:23.340] up a lot of rear end squat.
[01:06:23.340 -> 01:06:26.600] When you see that rear end squat with an independent rear,
[01:06:26.600 -> 01:06:28.960] you have to be careful that now,
[01:06:28.960 -> 01:06:30.980] as it travels up and down that little bit,
[01:06:30.980 -> 01:06:33.820] that your cambers are staying as consistent as possible
[01:06:33.820 -> 01:06:35.340] to get that drive off the corner,
[01:06:35.340 -> 01:06:36.800] especially at a place like Martinsville,
[01:06:36.800 -> 01:06:39.960] where it's so important to get every horsepower down.
[01:06:39.960 -> 01:06:41.680] Whereas in the solid axle,
[01:06:41.680 -> 01:06:44.920] your cambers and your toes were essentially solid.
[01:06:44.920 -> 01:06:46.120] They were built into the rear end.
[01:06:46.120 -> 01:06:48.360] So dynamic, or your dynamic movement
[01:06:48.360 -> 01:06:51.360] didn't necessarily upset those settings of the race car.
[01:06:51.360 -> 01:06:53.520] So it's kind of a balance.
[01:06:53.520 -> 01:06:56.800] I think anybody today would obviously pick
[01:06:56.800 -> 01:06:57.680] the independent rear.
[01:06:57.680 -> 01:06:58.980] It's easier to work on.
[01:07:00.040 -> 01:07:02.040] It's quicker to dial things in,
[01:07:02.040 -> 01:07:04.360] but ultimately you're kind of ending up
[01:07:04.360 -> 01:07:05.560] in the same place
[01:07:05.560 -> 01:07:06.560] as we were before.
[01:07:06.560 -> 01:07:10.760] Something that was really cool for me to see, I was standing in the last corner at Chicago
[01:07:10.760 -> 01:07:16.040] before it went full throttle down, down that straightaway, and I was actually able to capture
[01:07:16.040 -> 01:07:22.040] that squat in a slow-mo video, and it was quite markedly different, I would say, to
[01:07:22.040 -> 01:07:29.600] a gen six, having seen that on a road course as well, And it kind of caught me off guard. And I was so fascinated. I kept watching that clip back and
[01:07:29.600 -> 01:07:34.880] forth of that. You can really see that squat and travel in the new independent rear.
[01:07:35.680 -> 01:07:40.880] Yeah, you'll see a lot more at road courses. And like I said, Martinsville this week will be fun
[01:07:40.880 -> 01:07:45.600] to watch because it's always interesting how always um interesting how i think martinsville
[01:07:45.600 -> 01:07:51.200] and the super speedways evolve more than any other racetrack because there's so many ways to tackle
[01:07:51.200 -> 01:07:55.360] especially at martinsville you're constantly battling being able to turn in the center of
[01:07:55.360 -> 01:07:59.760] the corner and still have to drive off and you see wow i've seen people pick up the left front tire
[01:07:59.760 -> 01:08:08.300] at martinsville before and it actually kind of works. So there's so many ways to run fast laps around that little paperclip that you end up seeing
[01:08:08.300 -> 01:08:13.240] wild things, whether it be a lot of dynamic movement or none at all.
[01:08:13.240 -> 01:08:17.360] Listeners not aware, Martensville is NASCAR's shortest track that they run to build the
[01:08:17.360 -> 01:08:19.480] paperclip in a whole season.
[01:08:19.480 -> 01:08:22.000] So it's really true short track racing.
[01:08:22.000 -> 01:08:29.000] And I think jumping off of that as things change within a run and how there's a lot of evolution in the race, one thing that I'm constantly
[01:08:29.000 -> 01:08:33.080] trying to figure out the right way to explain or the right way to kind of tackle is, what's
[01:08:33.080 -> 01:08:37.400] really the true difference between a long run car versus a short run car? Because you
[01:08:37.400 -> 01:08:42.160] have kind of all of these kind of mini stints like you were talking about in Cup Series,
[01:08:42.160 -> 01:08:47.120] Xfinity and trucks. And is that a prioritization of setup where you want fuel versus
[01:08:47.120 -> 01:08:49.780] tires on a long stint versus a short stint?
[01:08:49.780 -> 01:08:52.320] Or is there kind of something at play with kind of how the balance shifts
[01:08:52.320 -> 01:08:56.480] as you, you go less fuel load or newer tires throughout the race?
[01:08:57.740 -> 01:09:01.160] Yeah, I think your biggest effect on whether it be a long run or short
[01:09:01.160 -> 01:09:03.400] run now is, is maybe your tire pressure.
[01:09:03.420 -> 01:09:06.360] You know, how much, how quickly do you want your driver
[01:09:06.360 -> 01:09:07.880] to be able to take off?
[01:09:07.880 -> 01:09:10.040] And how much is that gonna affect them,
[01:09:10.040 -> 01:09:12.320] you know, later in a run, if you care,
[01:09:12.320 -> 01:09:14.200] or are you down to a 10 lap run here
[01:09:14.200 -> 01:09:16.580] and you just wanna pump up the tires and let them go?
[01:09:16.580 -> 01:09:20.280] So, you know, outside of that,
[01:09:20.280 -> 01:09:22.600] it is based on track position.
[01:09:22.600 -> 01:09:24.720] And, you know, I think in the Cup Series,
[01:09:24.720 -> 01:09:29.080] especially where you are constantly running full stints
[01:09:29.080 -> 01:09:30.720] and resetting every week,
[01:09:30.720 -> 01:09:34.320] I think the short run and long run car setup and build
[01:09:34.320 -> 01:09:37.800] has really gone away, especially aerodynamically.
[01:09:37.800 -> 01:09:39.840] Like I said, you're constantly really battling
[01:09:39.840 -> 01:09:41.760] just to get as much downforce as possible,
[01:09:41.760 -> 01:09:44.440] where in 2020, when Kevin Harvick
[01:09:44.440 -> 01:09:45.860] had won a lot of those races,
[01:09:45.860 -> 01:09:48.740] a lot of it was that car was so trimmed out
[01:09:48.740 -> 01:09:51.480] so that for 10, 20 laps,
[01:09:51.480 -> 01:09:53.740] that car would be as fast as possible
[01:09:53.740 -> 01:09:56.080] so he could run away, get a lead,
[01:09:56.080 -> 01:09:57.860] and hopefully have enough later on
[01:09:57.860 -> 01:09:59.360] that they couldn't pass him.
[01:09:59.360 -> 01:10:01.560] And luckily during that year, you go back and you look,
[01:10:01.560 -> 01:10:03.120] and there were a lot of late restarts there
[01:10:03.120 -> 01:10:07.280] where ultimately that aerodynamic setup paid off.
[01:10:07.280 -> 01:10:11.520] Nowadays, with again the goal just being maximum downforce, a lot of those games, a lot of
[01:10:11.520 -> 01:10:16.680] those long run, short run options have gone away outside of maybe tire pressure.
[01:10:16.680 -> 01:10:20.780] Mad Fientist I think, Brian, a lot of our listeners are
[01:10:20.780 -> 01:10:25.000] more used to kind of theories where it's not,
[01:10:25.000 -> 01:10:27.200] you know, more of a spec series like NASCAR is,
[01:10:27.200 -> 01:10:29.480] or, you know, or even IndyCar is.
[01:10:29.480 -> 01:10:30.480] It's so sad to hear.
[01:10:30.480 -> 01:10:31.960] Yeah, I know, I know.
[01:10:31.960 -> 01:10:35.480] But, you know, I think this is a good time
[01:10:35.480 -> 01:10:38.960] to educate people on, even though you have,
[01:10:38.960 -> 01:10:42.480] say, spec parts, which are also part of this, right,
[01:10:42.480 -> 01:10:45.660] that there's still levers you can pull
[01:10:45.660 -> 01:10:49.020] and things that you can do to find the optimal performance.
[01:10:49.020 -> 01:10:51.380] Maybe it's a good time to kind of educate
[01:10:51.380 -> 01:10:53.820] some of our listeners on what some of those things are,
[01:10:53.820 -> 01:10:57.140] how you can tune a car, you know, ahead of a race
[01:10:57.140 -> 01:11:01.020] or, you know, during a race to make it fast.
[01:11:02.060 -> 01:11:05.200] Yeah, we've talked about the body first of all, right?
[01:11:05.200 -> 01:11:06.200] Yeah.
[01:11:06.200 -> 01:11:09.800] We have the underbody plus or minus 100,000, the overbody plus or minus 150, and then how
[01:11:09.800 -> 01:11:12.640] you go about using the manufacturer information you're given.
[01:11:12.640 -> 01:11:14.360] So there's a wide range.
[01:11:14.360 -> 01:11:19.840] If you take a Speedway car to a full downforce car, we're talking hundreds and hundreds of
[01:11:19.840 -> 01:11:25.000] pounds of downforce here that you could potentially take or leave.
[01:11:25.000 -> 01:11:27.760] So there are options in the body how you set things up.
[01:11:27.760 -> 01:11:31.520] When we talk about the spec parts and pieces,
[01:11:31.520 -> 01:11:34.160] I think a lot of us on the race teams
[01:11:34.160 -> 01:11:36.680] understand that we are asking, like I said,
[01:11:36.680 -> 01:11:38.640] for $10,000, $5,000.
[01:11:38.640 -> 01:11:40.080] Those are our tolerances.
[01:11:40.080 -> 01:11:42.200] The manufacturers of these parts and pieces,
[01:11:42.200 -> 01:11:44.400] their tolerances are way bigger than that.
[01:11:44.400 -> 01:11:48.660] So a lot of the game is now taking parts, you know, let's say you buy a body, you're
[01:11:48.660 -> 01:11:54.500] going to buy 20 bodies and you're going to scan and measure and weigh every single piece
[01:11:54.500 -> 01:11:58.380] and there is going to be a drastic difference in those pieces.
[01:11:58.380 -> 01:12:02.200] You know, you could have fenders that are 100,000ths longer than others.
[01:12:02.200 -> 01:12:04.540] You could have core panels that are 100,000ths longer than others.
[01:12:04.540 -> 01:12:05.680] You could have doors that are 100 thousandths longer than others. You could have core panels that are 100 thousandths longer than others. You could have doors that are,
[01:12:05.680 -> 01:12:10.420] so only now your car is almost 150, 200 thousandths longer
[01:12:10.420 -> 01:12:13.660] than say maybe the shortest car you can make.
[01:12:14.500 -> 01:12:17.300] And with all these pieces just simply bolting together,
[01:12:17.300 -> 01:12:19.380] you talk about a speedway car trying to hide
[01:12:19.380 -> 01:12:21.340] that spoiler face, you're adding,
[01:12:21.340 -> 01:12:23.620] you're taking all the shortest pieces possible
[01:12:23.620 -> 01:12:27.600] to make this car as short as possible so there's less face of the spoiler being shown.
[01:12:27.600 -> 01:12:32.560] So you're really taking all these parts and pieces, finding the inconsistencies in the
[01:12:32.560 -> 01:12:36.400] manufacturing process and utilizing them to your benefit.
[01:12:36.400 -> 01:12:40.940] You know, you talk about the single source chassis supplier now.
[01:12:40.940 -> 01:12:45.600] All these cup chassis have to come through technique and you know
[01:12:45.600 -> 01:12:50.380] they're bolt-on front and rear clips. Well you know for them their tolerances may
[01:12:50.380 -> 01:12:57.820] be two hundred thousands. For us within cup there is a shock travel rule. So the
[01:12:57.820 -> 01:13:03.840] shock can only compress I think it's three and a half inches or so and what
[01:13:03.840 -> 01:13:05.560] they do is they dictate then the shock length,
[01:13:05.560 -> 01:13:07.720] which we have heard a lot about these last couple of weeks.
[01:13:07.720 -> 01:13:09.240] We're not blaming, blaming on Scott.
[01:13:09.240 -> 01:13:11.600] Yeah, I was gonna ask that actually.
[01:13:11.600 -> 01:13:13.240] And people say, well, why does that matter?
[01:13:13.240 -> 01:13:15.800] So the series is basically dictating
[01:13:15.800 -> 01:13:18.160] how much you can travel these race cars.
[01:13:18.160 -> 01:13:19.600] Well, when you take these clips
[01:13:19.600 -> 01:13:22.600] and you bolt them onto the center sections,
[01:13:22.600 -> 01:13:25.800] you can have a massive difference in shock travel or your
[01:13:25.800 -> 01:13:31.020] shock mount height to the point where you're seeing 100, 200 thousandths of higher shock
[01:13:31.020 -> 01:13:33.560] mounts on particular clips that are on a particular car.
[01:13:33.560 -> 01:13:35.920] So you're playing musical chairs with your chassis.
[01:13:35.920 -> 01:13:40.700] You're getting a center section, putting every clip on it, measuring where the shock mounts
[01:13:40.700 -> 01:13:47.720] are at, and then going through your whole library to try to maximize the car the car. Obviously you're gonna end up with cars that don't have as much
[01:13:47.720 -> 01:13:50.920] shock travel those can be your backups or that can be your speedway car or
[01:13:50.920 -> 01:13:54.760] whatever you so choose but again it's going through these parts and pieces
[01:13:54.760 -> 01:13:59.960] finding the inconsistencies in the building and manufacture process to
[01:13:59.960 -> 01:14:06.800] maximize a car in every way or whatever flavor that you would like. So, you know,
[01:14:07.520 -> 01:14:13.360] people say spec and, you know, we see people, you know, especially here in the southeast,
[01:14:13.360 -> 01:14:17.280] we have a lot of late models, if, you know, people don't know, like I said, the short track stuff,
[01:14:17.280 -> 01:14:22.240] people can buy it. When this car first came out, all the people in the, at the teams were nervous,
[01:14:22.240 -> 01:14:26.160] like, oh, they're taking all the fun away. And it's like, if you look at these short track cars,
[01:14:26.160 -> 01:14:28.440] you see people, they build nice cars.
[01:14:28.440 -> 01:14:31.600] And then there's some pretty like farm,
[01:14:31.600 -> 01:14:35.540] I mean, some agricultural stuff, dirty, nasty.
[01:14:35.540 -> 01:14:37.120] I mean, like, you know what I mean?
[01:14:37.120 -> 01:14:40.840] Very, very rough cars that are just, they don't run well.
[01:14:40.840 -> 01:14:42.800] You have to be able to take parts and pieces.
[01:14:42.800 -> 01:14:43.920] You know, you can have the ingredients,
[01:14:43.920 -> 01:14:44.960] but to make a good sandwich,
[01:14:44.960 -> 01:14:45.000] you still have to be able to take parts and pieces. You can have the ingredients, but to make a good sandwich,
[01:14:45.000 -> 01:14:47.640] you still have to be a chef of sorts.
[01:14:47.640 -> 01:14:50.640] So there is a lot of performance to take
[01:14:50.640 -> 01:14:53.920] in these spec pieces.
[01:14:53.920 -> 01:14:56.520] There's a lot of performance in these spec pieces
[01:14:56.520 -> 01:14:58.000] that are out there for the taking,
[01:14:58.000 -> 01:14:59.540] if you're willing to put in the work.
[01:14:59.540 -> 01:15:02.240] Everybody hears spec like it's some big, scary word,
[01:15:02.240 -> 01:15:09.120] when honestly, the racing that it's produced has been, I think, first year they had the most winners since the eighties in the cup series, but it's kind of pick your poison and, and it costs versus reward.
[01:15:09.120 -> 01:15:11.480] But it's, if you're willing to play with it, it's, there's
[01:15:11.480 -> 01:15:12.800] some cool stuff that you can do.
[01:15:12.840 -> 01:15:14.000] There's, there's a lot of options.
[01:15:14.000 -> 01:15:18.320] Obviously it, you know, I miss the days of, you know, like we talked about the
[01:15:18.320 -> 01:15:21.560] under buys and things like that and suspension pieces, we would have bricks
[01:15:21.600 -> 01:15:25.600] of material that we could just, you know, I miss the days of, you know, like we talked about
[01:15:25.600 -> 01:15:30.320] the underbias and things like that and suspension pieces. We would have bricks of material just
[01:15:30.320 -> 01:15:34.560] shipped over from other countries and we would just build spindles out. And these spindles would cost
[01:15:35.680 -> 01:15:46.920] $40,000, $50,000 a piece for one car, you know. And so again, it's just, it's tough. You have to balance out maybe what the series is requiring to be stable.
[01:15:46.960 -> 01:15:52.200] And, and unfortunately, I think at this moment, maybe it is, it is good
[01:15:52.200 -> 01:15:56.000] for us to head down the spec path, but, um, you know, there's
[01:15:56.000 -> 01:15:57.360] still plenty of fun out there.
[01:15:57.400 -> 01:15:59.020] There's still a lot of options.
[01:15:59.440 -> 01:16:03.560] And again, like I said before, you need good people that are going to, um,
[01:16:03.920 -> 01:16:08.520] you know, take these cars and it's going to take good people, smart people,
[01:16:08.520 -> 01:16:09.560] to win races.
[01:16:09.560 -> 01:16:11.160] Winning races, like you've mentioned,
[01:16:11.160 -> 01:16:12.600] also in the Xfinity series, which
[01:16:12.600 -> 01:16:15.640] is kind of the step down from the Cup series in the NASCAR
[01:16:15.640 -> 01:16:16.400] Ladder program.
[01:16:16.400 -> 01:16:17.880] And you've also talked, I think, I'm
[01:16:17.880 -> 01:16:20.000] going to include the Craftsman Truck Series in this as well.
[01:16:20.000 -> 01:16:23.440] Even though Stuart Haas doesn't race in it, Ford still does.
[01:16:23.440 -> 01:16:25.320] That's kind of the, I call them the NAS trucks.
[01:16:25.320 -> 01:16:28.080] That's the other part of the NASCAR ladder.
[01:16:28.080 -> 01:16:32.200] When you're jumping from truck to cup to Xfinity
[01:16:32.200 -> 01:16:33.840] back and forth, and you're kind of working
[01:16:33.840 -> 01:16:35.640] on all of these different disciplines,
[01:16:35.640 -> 01:16:37.920] there's still all of these different intricacies
[01:16:37.920 -> 01:16:41.560] in each of these own cars or kind of each their own animal.
[01:16:41.560 -> 01:16:43.040] What are some of the biggest adjustments
[01:16:43.040 -> 01:16:46.280] that you have to make or you see that are being made? Or is there a mindset shift? What do you kind of each their own animal. What are some of the biggest adjustments that you have to make or you see that are being made?
[01:16:46.280 -> 01:16:47.500] Or is there a mindset shift?
[01:16:47.500 -> 01:16:49.160] What do you kind of see adjustment-wise
[01:16:49.160 -> 01:16:52.080] between those three series and disciplines?
[01:16:52.080 -> 01:16:53.800] Yeah, I mean, first and foremost,
[01:16:53.800 -> 01:16:58.480] I've gone through that phase of truck X-Fantasy Cup, right?
[01:16:58.480 -> 01:17:02.560] And every time I would go from one to the next,
[01:17:02.560 -> 01:17:05.080] I felt like I was well-prepared. I felt like, next. I felt like I was well prepared.
[01:17:05.080 -> 01:17:08.460] I felt like, I guess I felt like a badass.
[01:17:08.460 -> 01:17:11.400] Like I can go to the next step and be able to do it.
[01:17:11.400 -> 01:17:14.080] And every time it's just a kick in the nuts
[01:17:14.080 -> 01:17:16.960] on how aggressive things get
[01:17:16.960 -> 01:17:19.040] as you step up this ladder, right?
[01:17:19.960 -> 01:17:22.800] Just from the campaigns,
[01:17:22.800 -> 01:17:25.240] we're not talking about a truck series,
[01:17:25.240 -> 01:17:28.960] each truck costing 10, $15 million a year to run.
[01:17:28.960 -> 01:17:31.480] We're talking about cup campaigns
[01:17:31.480 -> 01:17:34.640] that were upwards of $250 million a year.
[01:17:34.640 -> 01:17:37.960] So the things, the resources and the,
[01:17:39.280 -> 01:17:41.640] how hard people were driven to win races
[01:17:41.640 -> 01:17:46.880] is just magnified to an unbelievable way. And again, you see this in
[01:17:46.880 -> 01:17:54.320] every series as you make it to the highest level. It's going from putting bodies on a truck where
[01:17:54.320 -> 01:17:59.680] you measure with a tape measure and things were done in inches to ending up with the cup series
[01:17:59.680 -> 01:18:06.440] and being asked to change things at 10 thousandths of an inch and doing it instantly. It's not like, Hey, I just need you to do this.
[01:18:06.440 -> 01:18:09.000] We have a week, like I need you to put this nose on any,
[01:18:09.040 -> 01:18:13.320] you have a 10 thou window and you have a day and a half to do it. So, um,
[01:18:13.400 -> 01:18:16.840] you know, again, the, the, the intensity is just, it's,
[01:18:16.880 -> 01:18:22.040] it's amplified in a huge way. Um, and I think that's the biggest thing.
[01:18:22.040 -> 01:18:29.560] That's the biggest trouble for people that go from in the, in our sport, from our sport, from the lower levels to the higher levels is the things that are asked for you.
[01:18:29.560 -> 01:18:33.880] Because outside of that, I feel like it's just wrenches, right?
[01:18:33.880 -> 01:18:34.880] You're just holding tools.
[01:18:34.880 -> 01:18:38.600] Maybe that doesn't sound right, but it's really how you control your own emotions.
[01:18:38.600 -> 01:18:41.640] Yeah, I get what you're kind of saying where it's like at the end of the day, a race car
[01:18:41.640 -> 01:18:49.920] is a race car for the most part, and what you adjust and what you do on it, it's like at the end of the day a race car is a race car for the most part and what you adjust and what you do on it it's kind of the same principles and same foundation that you build car
[01:18:49.920 -> 01:18:55.600] to car. There may be intricacies but it's really kind of that behavioral and attitude and personal
[01:18:55.600 -> 01:19:00.880] side that it really gets different as you step through the ladder. Yeah 100 percent. You know
[01:19:00.880 -> 01:19:08.160] I have my neighbor he works for a sports car team, and to watch him go from the smaller
[01:19:08.160 -> 01:19:18.680] sides, the pilot series, to now the GTP class, and his demeanor and the way he carries himself,
[01:19:18.680 -> 01:19:26.480] and the life sacrifices he makes to be at that level is, is it's unbelievable, man.
[01:19:26.480 -> 01:19:27.440] I mean, if you wanna,
[01:19:27.440 -> 01:19:30.280] if you wanna win races at any high level in this world,
[01:19:30.280 -> 01:19:32.760] it's, it's gonna take a lot of effort, a lot of push.
[01:19:32.760 -> 01:19:35.000] And, you know, it's all worth it in the end,
[01:19:35.000 -> 01:19:36.880] but it's not easy, that's for sure.
[01:19:36.880 -> 01:19:38.240] Couldn't agree more, Brian.
[01:19:38.240 -> 01:19:41.240] I think there's a lot of people across many motorsport
[01:19:41.240 -> 01:19:43.920] categories who sacrifice so much.
[01:19:43.920 -> 01:19:46.720] And, and that's, you know, one of the things that.
[01:19:47.220 -> 01:19:52.800] Premises of breaking bias podcast is that we want to give due and credit to all
[01:19:52.800 -> 01:19:56.900] different motorsport categories, because there's so many people out there working
[01:19:56.900 -> 01:20:01.220] so hard, it doesn't matter if it's a constructor series, spec series, whatever.
[01:20:01.700 -> 01:20:06.880] They are all worthy of attention, focus, credit.
[01:20:06.880 -> 01:20:09.800] I mean, this is what we love.
[01:20:09.800 -> 01:20:13.520] I mean, if you're, you know, you talked about your first experience at a racetrack and just
[01:20:13.520 -> 01:20:14.520] the smell.
[01:20:14.520 -> 01:20:20.240] I mean, I, you know, I was a young kid in San Antonio at an IMSA race that I just stumbled
[01:20:20.240 -> 01:20:23.560] into and in the 80s.
[01:20:23.560 -> 01:20:29.160] And it was like, I was hooked after that, you know, like everybody has these stories. And I know, you know, for, for myself and I'm sure I speak for Molly, it's been an
[01:20:29.160 -> 01:20:30.920] honor to have you on our podcast.
[01:20:31.480 -> 01:20:35.400] You're our first guest and I'm glad we got a chance to sit down and also talk
[01:20:35.400 -> 01:20:36.680] about NASCAR as well.
[01:20:36.680 -> 01:20:40.400] You know, we've been talking a lot about F1, but, but breaking biases
[01:20:40.400 -> 01:20:42.000] about so much more than just that.
[01:20:42.520 -> 01:20:45.360] And I want to give you a chance as well, Brian,, we've been talking a lot about F1, but, but breaking bias is about so much
[01:20:45.360 -> 01:20:50.080] more than just that. And I want to give you a chance as well, Brian, to kind of plug some of
[01:20:50.080 -> 01:20:55.520] your socials where maybe people might be able to find you. So, yeah, I think the biggest one for me
[01:20:55.520 -> 01:21:01.360] is, is X, you know, formerly Twitter, I still have to get used to calling it X, but, you know,
[01:21:01.360 -> 01:21:05.320] my handle's at Brian underscore Murphy underscore.
[01:21:05.320 -> 01:21:12.320] I try to be as active as I can on there, whether it be just my opinions, which it could be
[01:21:12.320 -> 01:21:13.320] right, it could be wrong.
[01:21:13.320 -> 01:21:14.320] It doesn't matter.
[01:21:14.320 -> 01:21:18.600] It's fun just to be out there talking more sports or the technical side.
[01:21:18.600 -> 01:21:23.000] There's a lot of information at my fingertips and I am by no means the smartest person in
[01:21:23.000 -> 01:21:26.000] NASCAR, but I enjoy sharing what I can and how I can.
[01:21:26.000 -> 01:21:32.200] And I always tell people ask as many questions as you can because that's how everybody learns
[01:21:32.200 -> 01:21:34.960] and it's just a ton of fun.
[01:21:34.960 -> 01:21:38.660] I can't thank you guys enough for having me on.
[01:21:38.660 -> 01:21:41.160] This is my favorite part of motorsports.
[01:21:41.160 -> 01:21:43.320] I love winning races.
[01:21:43.320 -> 01:21:46.480] I love working on the cars, doing all these things,
[01:21:46.480 -> 01:21:53.480] but my favorite part is sharing these experiences, these moments, talking with people about racing.
[01:21:53.480 -> 01:21:57.720] This is why we all do it. This is the fun part. So I can't thank you enough for having
[01:21:57.720 -> 01:22:03.640] me on. It's an honor. I can't wait to listen to the many more great guests I'm sure you'll
[01:22:03.640 -> 01:22:06.120] have on, the many more great episodes ahead of you guys.
[01:22:06.120 -> 01:22:08.440] Welcome back any time too.
[01:22:08.440 -> 01:22:10.600] Yes, any time, Brian.
[01:22:10.600 -> 01:22:12.200] Any parting thoughts from you, Molly?
[01:22:12.200 -> 01:22:17.440] I am so thankful to have talked to NASCAR with Brian and kind of picked his brain.
[01:22:17.440 -> 01:22:21.160] And this is one of my favorite things too, in the community, just getting to talk and
[01:22:21.160 -> 01:22:25.480] pick people's brains and learn more because NASCAR is a series that got me into motorsport
[01:22:25.480 -> 01:22:27.720] and why I'm here today.
[01:22:27.720 -> 01:22:31.760] So to be able to do that, it was very fulfilling and great
[01:22:31.760 -> 01:22:32.260] to do.
[01:22:32.260 -> 01:22:34.320] And I loved getting to do that.
[01:22:34.320 -> 01:22:36.980] And so I think being able to share that knowledge
[01:22:36.980 -> 01:22:39.840] with others that maybe also look down on NASCAR
[01:22:39.840 -> 01:22:42.080] is also great because I know this
[01:22:42.080 -> 01:22:45.520] is an episode I learned even a lot from and I'm pretty well
[01:22:45.520 -> 01:22:47.080] versed in the world of NASCAR tech.
[01:22:47.080 -> 01:22:51.320] So I'm just so thankful that you joined us and got to be our first guest and I can't
[01:22:51.320 -> 01:22:54.440] wait to see what questions come from this and conversations.
[01:22:54.440 -> 01:22:57.880] I think there's going to be a lot of cool kind of questions and things that came from
[01:22:57.880 -> 01:22:58.880] this episode.
[01:22:58.880 -> 01:22:59.880] That's right.
[01:22:59.880 -> 01:23:10.320] And if you are not following the Breaking Bias podcast, you can do so. We're very active on X, which I'm also taking a little bit to get used to
[01:23:10.320 -> 01:23:13.200] saying, but we are at Breaking Bias pod.
[01:23:13.580 -> 01:23:16.320] And you can also find us on YouTube as well.
[01:23:16.720 -> 01:23:20.620] Uh, you can find us on Spotify, iTunes, all the places where the podcasts
[01:23:20.620 -> 01:23:22.640] are under Breaking Bias pod.
[01:23:23.000 -> 01:23:27.960] And, you know, we are a podcast where we're not afraid to be wrong.
[01:23:27.960 -> 01:23:32.960] We're not afraid to be humble in our opinions and everything.
[01:23:32.960 -> 01:23:35.680] And I think, Brian, you're of the same mindset.
[01:23:35.680 -> 01:23:38.520] So it's really been great talking to you today.
[01:23:38.520 -> 01:23:42.400] And I just want to remind all of our listeners
[01:23:42.400 -> 01:23:44.460] to continue to break the biases,
[01:23:44.460 -> 01:23:47.460] whether it's gender biases in motorsports,
[01:23:47.460 -> 01:23:49.080] it's technical background biases,
[01:23:49.080 -> 01:23:51.000] or it's motorsport biases.
[01:23:51.000 -> 01:23:53.600] Break the biases and we are better together.
[01:23:53.600 -> 01:23:55.560] Thank you so much for everybody for listening
[01:23:55.560 -> 01:23:57.000] and we will catch you next time.
[01:23:57.000 -> None] See you next time. you