Physics Of NASCAR

The New York Times has an article about the physics of NASCAR.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — When Junior Johnson entered the Daytona 500 in 1960, he’d already achieved fame in two careers — first as a moonshiner who kept outrunning federal agents, then by applying those skills to win stock-car races.

Now he was ready for a new career as an “intuitive physicist,” a term borrowed from Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, who teaches nonintuitive physics at the University of Nebraska.

Johnson was stuck driving an old Chevrolet that was slower than the Pontiacs at Daytona that year. But in practice he discovered that he could keep up with a Pontiac if he stayed close to its rear bumper. He suspected, as he put it, that “the air was creating a situation, a slipstream type of thing.”

Just in time for this years Daytona 500.