#ICYMI - NASCAR vs Formula 1

In case you missed this episode on the Playing with Science channel…. NASCAR or Formula 1? Which one do you choose? Our hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly sit down with science communicator Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, PhD, to try and determine who takes the checkered flag.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 0:02Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 0:03Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is Playing with Science.

• 0:08Gary O'Reilly?

  Today, we endeavour to settle one of motorsport's biggest issues, which is, what is better? Well, in scientific terms, Chuck's muscle-bound NASCAR. Or my turn-right-as-well-as-left, super-sleek Formula One racers.

• 0:22Chuck Nice?

  Ah, I see that little didd, you snuck in there already, but we know NASCAR is merka, dammit. Merka! It's what we're talking about! And because Gary and I have driven ourselves into the weeds arguing, and he can't see why I am right, correct, uh, we've called on the services of an expert.

• 0:39Gary O'Reilly?

  We have, and we are really excited to have another incredible guest at the top of their game, which means Dr. Diandra Leslie Pelecky will adjudicate and decide which one of us takes the chequered flag first.

• 0:51Chuck Nice?

  And you know she's good, she's got three names. That means she's smart.

• 0:56Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes. Well, she's gonna be smarter than us, which isn't setting the bar very high, but I do believe way beyond. Would you like to go through the list of the good doctor's treatments?

• 1:07Chuck Nice?

  Yes, Dr. Diandra Leslie Pelecky is the author of The Physics of NASCAR. She blogs about the science of auto racing at Building Speed, appears every Friday on the SiriusXM Speedway Satellite Radio Program, it's NASCAR Channel 90! And she kind of, that was nice, man! And comments on the current tech-related events. She's a Ph.D. in condensed matter physics from Michigan State University, and she spent most of her academic career in the Department of Physics at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln!

• 1:40Gary O'Reilly?

  And the one thing you didn't say was the doctor's speciality of nanotechnology, particularly nano-medicine, which I would love to do a show on that. That would be incredible. Dr. Diandra, welcome to Playing with Science.

• 1:54Speaker 02

  Hi, I'm happy to be here.

• 1:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, we are so happy to hear, have you?

• 1:59Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, let's get into, um, the business. Because I'm polite, we'll start with NASCAR.

• 2:05Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 2:06Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 2:07Chuck Nice?

  The better of the two sports, clearly.

• 2:09Gary O'Reilly?

  To be decided.

• 2:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:12Gary O'Reilly?

  Right, new regulations introduced recently mean cars are slower, that being slightly slower, so, please, how do slower cars make for better racing?

• 2:24Speaker 02

  Well, you know, it's a little different than if you're looking at a field like, say, drag racing.

• 2:28Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 2:28Speaker 02

  Where it's really all about the speed.

• 2:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Steve LeTarte, who used to be Jeff Gordon's crew chief, told me once, anyone can go fast straight.

• 2:35Chuck Nice?

  This is true.

• 2:37Speaker 02

  Turning fast, yeah, turning fast is where the challenge is. And so when you're coming into a corner, you're doing a bunch of things. You're slowing down, so the weight of the car is moving from the rear of the car to the front.

• 2:47Chuck Nice?

  Or a little.

• 2:48Speaker 02

  You're going around the corner, so you've got centripetal acceleration.

• 2:51Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:51Speaker 02

  And then you're speeding up again, so the weight is moving to the back of the car. So how fast you can go around that corner is really where races are won and lost, not on the straightaways, but how fast you can turn. And sometimes, turning slower actually lets you turn better.

• 3:06Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so now that you actually got into that, uh, why don't you, I didn't want to get into it, there's so, get in the weeds so quickly, but you brought it up. Can you break down what drivers talk about when they talk about parts of a turn? Cause some are like, oh, there's three parts of a turn, there's six parts of a turn, oh, there's nine parts of, there are nineteen parts of a turn, boy, that's what you don't understand. And the other thing, uh, is. I don't understand. See, this is why NASCAR is so good, man. First of all, it's the only sport where people talk with a southern drawl that makes it sound even better. Know what I mean? So anyway, uh, the other thing is, uh, what you described when you talked about the braking and the acceleration is, what do they call it?

• 3:51Chuck Nice?

  Load transfer or load shifting or something like that? So if you could talk about those two things, parts of turn and the load transfer and what that is all about from a physics standpoint?

• 4:00Speaker 02

  Sure. Well, let's start with one of the differences between NASCAR and Formula One.

• 4:05Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 4:06Speaker 02

  Which is, there are as many turns as the driver has time to explain. So you can't have nineteen turns because the driver wouldn't be able to explain them. And this is a difference. In Formula One, everyone back in the shop, the engineers, the people on the pit box, they know what the car is doing. NASCAR doesn't allow instrumentation on the cars, which means the only person who knows what the car is doing is the driver.

• 4:29Chuck Nice?

  Woo!

• 4:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. And sometimes not even the driver.

• 4:34Chuck Nice?

  Yes, that would be me driving the car. I have no idea what this car is doing.

• 4:39Gary O'Reilly?

  That's the bit where the driver and the wall.

• 4:41Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Right.

• 4:43Gary O'Reilly?

  So, go ahead. Carry on, please.

• 4:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, so this is where the driver has to convey to the crew chief what the car is doing. And to say it's slower on the corner is absolutely no help. And the question is, well, where is it slow? Why is it slow? So you mentioned load transfer. Let's imagine you're sitting at a car and you put on the accelerator. You feel a force backward, right?

• 5:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  That's because the body of the car is attached to the wheels of the car by the suspension, which is a spring and a shock.

• 5:13Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:13Speaker 02

  And so it's not rigidly attached. So when you step on the gas, the weight transfers from those front wheels to the rear wheels. Conversely, when you step on the brake, same thing, you go forward. It goes from the rear, I'm sorry, yeah, it goes from the rear to the front in that case. When you turn, you guys have seen the tippy truck sign, you know, the one that says...

• 5:33Chuck Nice?

  Right, yeah, when you have a big high box truck.

• 5:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Yep.

• 5:36Chuck Nice?

  And then it's up on two wheels because if it's going around the corner, it looks like the truck may tip over.

• 5:44Speaker 02

  Right, and it may tip into the turn.

• 5:46Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:46Speaker 02

  That's because of the forces on a banked track. So when you go into that turn, you've got all these forces. You've got the weight. I should mention, okay, so the reason why the weight is important is because how much grip you have depends on how much weight is pushing down on that wheel.

• 6:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  Imagine I had a tire and I pull it and it takes a certain amount of force. Then I ask you to sit on it. It's gonna be harder for me to pull it now, right?

• 6:13Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:14Speaker 02

  That tire's got more grip.

• 6:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:16Gary O'Reilly?

  But I don't want weight on my car. I'm European, we do thin. We do spurt and we do sleek. So, but I need weight on my car. So that's aerodynamic downforce. So how does NASCAR, because I know how the F1 guys go about playing with this because the shape's all very different. So how did NASCAR go about creating that?

• 6:36Chuck Nice?

  That's a good point because in F1, it's basically an upside down plane. That's what gives you the downforce in an F1 car.

• 6:44Gary O'Reilly?

  You've got nothing good to say about it.

• 6:45Chuck Nice?

  No, I do not. It's a plane that don't even know how to fly right, boy. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about a plane flying upside down. That's your F1.

• 6:58Chuck Nice?

  So what is, uh, what's, what are the, uh, downforce effects happening in NASCAR? That gives you, that, or gives you the grip on the tires the, uh, the same way that it does in F1?

• 7:11Speaker 02

  It's pretty much the same thing. Now, as you pointed out, the NASCAR race car is about twice the weight of an F1 or an open wheel car.

• 7:18Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  So there is more weight due to the, uh, mechanical. We call that mechanical load. So the NASCAR race car has more mechanical load, um, but the aerodynamics is basically the same. You put out surfaces and air molecules running into those surfaces actually push the car into the road. And air molecules are extremely small and they exert extremely tiny force, but there are a lot of them.

• 7:41Chuck Nice?

  Billions and billions.

• 7:44Speaker 02

  Literally billions and billions and probably more.

• 7:47Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  And so NASCAR uses the same thing. There's a wing on the, on, there's a, not a wing. There's a spoiler on the back and there's a splitter on the front. And those are the two main devices we use to get forced down. Now, F1 uses a lot of underbody construction.

• 8:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:03Speaker 02

  And they're actually trying to suck that car to the ground.

• 8:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  And that's not the game NASCAR plays.

• 8:07Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 8:07Speaker 02

  And so there isn't really that stuff going on in the bottom of the car in NASCAR.

• 8:11Chuck Nice?

  So also too, when you look at the difference between the constructions of the two cars, the, uh, the Formula One car is a lot lower to the ground. How does that change the performance of the car?

• 8:27Speaker 02

  Well, you, um, so you mentioned load transfer.

• 8:30Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 8:31Speaker 02

  The amount of load transfer, think about the difference between driving an SUV or like a little Miata or an MG.

• 8:37Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:38Speaker 02

  In the Miata, in the Miata, you're low to the ground. So when you turn, you don't get as much load transfer. If you're in an SUV, your center of gravity is way off the ground, which means when you turn, more weight transfers. That's why SUVs are much more likely to tip over, you know, than an MG.

• 8:53Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha. Wow. That is cool. Getting down, dude.

• 8:57Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, we're getting down to it.

• 8:58Chuck Nice?

  You gotta get down with, with the center of gravity.

• 9:00Gary O'Reilly?

  That's right.

• 9:00Chuck Nice?

  That's why they're low slung. That's why they're in the, so go back, cause you, you've got a very predictable track for NASCAR. I'm, I'm not, I'm not breaking any news here.

• 9:10Gary O'Reilly?

  Hmm.

• 9:13Gary O'Reilly?

  But yeah, thank you. Because all I seem to do at the moment is watch my TV with breaking news. And but I'm guessing, because that's all I can do, because I don't have any experience here, that although there are forces in play, there are different forces in play on different parts of the car at the same time. And because this doesn't have a driver direct connect to a to a pit lane or a support team, the driver himself has to have such amazing intuition and and and basically have a physical extension of themselves in the car.

• 9:49Chuck Nice?

  Hmm. Did either of you drive a stick shift? Did you just admit that NASCAR drivers are better than F1 drivers?

• 9:56Gary O'Reilly?

  No.

• 9:56Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 9:58Gary O'Reilly?

  No.

• 9:59Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 9:59Gary O'Reilly?

  Don't twist my words. Sorry, Doc.

• 10:01Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead, Doc. Go ahead.

• 10:02Speaker 02

  Sort of sounded to me like he did.

• 10:05Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm not doing well with the numerics here, am I?

• 10:09Chuck Nice?

  But go ahead.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  Do either of you drive a stick shift?

• 10:12Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, I have done.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  Okay, so you know, when you're driving along, when you have your hand on that stick shift, you are feeling the car.

• 10:18Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 10:19Speaker 02

  You know what the engine is doing, and that's not the feeling you have like with an automatic transmission. And so in NASCAR, we talk about driving by the seat of your pants. And what that means is the feel. As you're in there, you are feeling what each one of those four tires is doing. You will hear drivers tell their crew chiefs, I think I'm getting a right front flat. So inside the car, they know which one of those tires is not behaving based on how it's turning, how it's going down the straightaways.

• 10:46Chuck Nice?

  Interesting. Hey, speaking of that, once again, you keep bringing these things up that lead to you're like kneading dough. Talking to you is like kneading out a big pizza pie. It just keeps growing and growing.

• 10:57Gary O'Reilly?

  You and food again.

• 10:58Chuck Nice?

  I know, I'm so hungry.

• 11:01Chuck Nice?

  So when you talk about the feel of the tires, feels like I'm getting a right front flat tire. Can you talk about the weight distribution when you are going around the corners? And since you're only going around the corner in one way, what's that do to tires? And are you allowed to compensate for that kind of wear in the tires that you put on the car? Or does everybody have to do it exactly the same way?

• 11:38Speaker 02

  Okay, well, let's start by pointing out that three times a year, there are 36 races in the NASCAR season, three times a year, they do turn right.

• 11:47Speaker 02

  There are three road courses.

• 11:49Gary O'Reilly?

  Now you're teasing me. Now you're teasing me.

• 11:52Speaker 02

  It is possible. I've seen it myself in person.

• 11:55Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 11:58Gary O'Reilly?

  This is the only car you can buy with no ride indicator.

• 12:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Sorry, doctor, you were saying.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  No, that's fine.

• 12:06Speaker 02

  So as you're, I'm trying to remember what you asked.

• 12:09Chuck Nice?

  I was talking about weight distribution going around the corner, since you're going around the corners and said the tires, and can you compensate, are you allowed to compensate for that, since, you know, first of all, I don't know if this is right, so let me just paint the picture that I see in my mind. You're going around the corner, the weight distribution shifts so that the outside tires are, like in a skier, are on the edges, and so they're being pressed down harder on the outside. The inside tire, just like a skier on a slalom course, looks like that inside leg, what that has to do, it's almost off the ground, as you see, like the skier, it looks like that ski is bouncing up and down, because that skier is lifting his knee, and he's

• 12:52Chuck Nice?

  riding the edge of the outside ski. So, is that the case in the car, the same way? And are you allowed to do something to compensate for the wear and tear on the tires that are going to get the beating that they get going around the corners?

• 13:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, y'all don't need me, I think you got this one. That is exactly what happens, as you go around the turn, the weight shifts onto the outside tires, and those left tires, you can actually, at a place, a small track like Bristol or Martinsville, you will see them pick up. Steve Lettard also told me, he said, at a place like Martinsville, you could put your hand under the left front tire, and you'd be fine. Now, the problem, of course, is that the left rear tire comes along right after that.

• 13:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 13:37Chuck Nice?

  And crushes your hand.

• 13:38Speaker 02

  Practically, yeah, you don't want to do that.

• 13:39Gary O'Reilly?

  You've got to be quick.

• 13:40Chuck Nice?

  Unless you're very fast. It's a really good game of hot potato.

• 13:43Gary O'Reilly?

  So, going back to what Chuck was thinking, do you have a standard tire for NASCAR each race, or do you have a variation of solutions depending on whatever the team feels like on the day?

• 14:00Speaker 02

  So in the 1970s NASCAR had what they called the tire wars.

• 14:04Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  And they, basically, everyone could pick their own tire manufacturer.

• 14:08Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow.

• 14:09Speaker 02

  And the tire manufacturers were trying to outdo each other.

• 14:11Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 14:12Speaker 02

  And, you know, sometimes race car drivers are their own worst enemies. And they would much rather go fast than be safe.

• 14:18Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:19Speaker 02

  We had some unfortunate accidents that could have been prevented. And since that time, NASCAR has gone with one tire supplier.

• 14:26Chuck Nice?

  Goodyear.

• 14:27Speaker 02

  It is Goodyear. It's been Goodyear forever.

• 14:29Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  Um, I in fact, I got to tour the factory where they make those tires, um, last year in August. Those tires are handmade and Goodyear specializes each tire to the type of track they're running. So every track is different. It's got different length. It's got different banking. It's got different type of asphalt. And so each tire for each race is different, but every team uses the same tires. They are not allowed to.

• 14:54Chuck Nice?

  Not allowed to variate.

• 14:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, they can't do anything to those tires once they get them.

• 14:58Chuck Nice?

  So now are they like the tires in F1 where you have the slicks? You have some very light treads for, uh, different tracks. And then they're like the tire that might give a little, I forget what they use in F1 for rain. But it's like a tire with a giant zigzag on it.

• 15:16Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, they're called compounds.

• 15:17Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 15:18Gary O'Reilly?

  So you have a different compound for different conditions. Um, but what, what it sounds like is the tire manufacturer Goodyear has kind of gone in a generalized solution. By, by manufacturing a tire particularly for one track and then the next track and then the next track. And then every, every team gets that. Whereas in F1.

• 15:39Chuck Nice?

  No, you can.

• 15:39Gary O'Reilly?

  Your team can run with slicks. I can run with whatever is.

• 15:43Chuck Nice?

  You can run with the tread. You can run with slicks. It's, it's up to the team to determine what they think is best for the track.

• 15:49Speaker 02

  Yes. Uh, one of the things, having spent eight hours in a downpour at the Petit Le Mans at, at Atlanta. Uh, one of the things I like about NASCAR is that when it rains, we go inside and wait for it to stop raining. We don't insist on staying out there and running. So NASCAR, you know, at road courses, we might use rain tires.

• 16:08Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:09Speaker 02

  But in general, we don't.

• 16:10Chuck Nice?

  Sounds like good old fashioned common sense to me.

• 16:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Sounds like you don't like racing.

• 16:18Gary O'Reilly?

  To me, because my boys don't mind getting wet. Because they'll just duck into the pit lane, slap on some wet weather tyres and then get out there and play who goes fastest again.

• 16:30Chuck Nice?

  And I'm gonna tell you something, now that sounds more uniquely American than the other thing about going indoors, so I'm gonna give you points on that one.

• 16:37Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh.

• 16:37Chuck Nice?

  Because I gotta admit.

• 16:39Gary O'Reilly?

  I don't want sympathy points.

• 16:40Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I gotta admit, like, you know, Americans love their sports to, you know, we love football and when it rains or snows or hails.

• 16:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 16:48Chuck Nice?

  Or even lightnings, that nobody calls the game, they're just like, if God wants us to die for football, then God wants us to die for football. Okay.

• 16:57Gary O'Reilly?

  All right.

• 16:58Chuck Nice?

  I think we gotta take a break.

• 17:00Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, we will take that break.

• 17:02Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 17:02Gary O'Reilly?

  I am still right, F1 is better, and when we come back, I will be slapped down once again, so stick around, we'll have more from Dr. Diandra Leslie Pelecky when we return.

• 17:44Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back to Playing with Science, Gary Ryan and Chuck Nice here with one of the most interesting guests we've had on, Dr. Diandra Leslie Pelecky.

• 17:56Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 17:57Gary O'Reilly?

  Who nanotechnology, nanomedicine, the physics of NASCAR.

• 18:03Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 18:03Gary O'Reilly?

  And what we will only describe as NASCAR expertise.

• 18:09Chuck Nice?

  Extraordinary.

• 18:10Gary O'Reilly?

  To the square root of something rather large.

• 18:12Chuck Nice?

  That's right, my friend.

• 18:13Gary O'Reilly?

  There we go.

• 18:13Chuck Nice?

  The good doctor is really fascinating to talk to, and I got a feeling that she might be coming down on my side of the argument that NASCAR is the better racing sport.

• 18:23Gary O'Reilly?

  No, no, I think, if you remember, way back to the last section, that I got sympathy points for driving in the rain.

• 18:30Chuck Nice?

  Listen, I'm gonna give you that, okay, that that sounds like you would, you would think, you know, as a matter of fact, so is it more danger, okay, let me rephrase that before I say something really idiotic. In NASCAR particularly,

• 18:48Chuck Nice?

  is driving in the rain something that is so dangerous that you just doesn't make sense to do it?

• 18:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, again, that goes to the weight difference.

• 18:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:58Speaker 02

  You have to have friction to keep the car on the track.

• 19:00Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 19:01Speaker 02

  The heavier the car is, the more friction you need.

• 19:03Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 19:03Speaker 02

  And so it's a lot easier to keep the lighter car on the track than it is to keep the stock car on the track. The other problem is that, you know, these are closed cockpit cars.

• 19:12Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  Unlike the F1 car.

• 19:14Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  And we pried out rain tires. I want to say if it was Road America or if it was in Montreal a couple of years ago. And they had this great video of Carl Edwards, one of the drivers, reaching around out of the window with a rag, trying to clean off his windshield because it was fogging up.

• 19:31Speaker 02

  You know, they'd have to put in a defroster and blinker lights and all those things. It's just more trouble.

• 19:37Gary O'Reilly?

  Can you imagine he's doing that and then the police pull up next to him?

• 19:39Chuck Nice?

  That'd be so funny. Yeah, you're right. I guess it just doesn't make a lot of sense to do it, you know? And you're right about the friction thing. You don't think about it, but it's almost like sledding when you were a kid. You know, when it comes to sliding on that, you really, you really want a fat kid on the back of that sled.

• 19:59Gary O'Reilly?

  You went there again, didn't you?

• 20:00Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 20:01Gary O'Reilly?

  By the way, I do feel as if you're taking back those sympathy points.

• 20:06Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, Doctor, you talk about bump drafting. And obviously that's not something I'm familiar with in Formula One. Would you be kind enough to explain bump drafting to me?

• 20:16Chuck Nice?

  There's no bumping in Formula One.

• 20:18Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, there is. It's just not there for any drafting benefit. It's there because you don't like the guy in front.

• 20:24Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 20:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, the whole concept of unavoidable contact is utterly foreign to NASCAR, I'm afraid.

• 20:31Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 20:32Speaker 02

  It is part of the game.

• 20:33Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it's a contact sport.

• 20:35Speaker 02

  It is a contact sport. Four times a year, we go to two very big tracks. So Daytona and Talladega.

• 20:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:42Speaker 02

  One is two and a third miles, one is two and a half.

• 20:45Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  At those tracks, um, we actually run a plate that restricts the amount of air coming into the engine. And if you restrict the air coming to the engine, you have to restrict the amount of gasoline coming into the engine. So the cars have less horsepower. They're down to about 450 horsepower.

• 21:00Chuck Nice?

  Wow. That's like, there are cars on the street that have 450 horsepower.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  They are. And if you took one of them out on one of those really big tracks at Daytona, they would probably have some of the same problems, which is that if you get going fast enough and then you turn, the car starts looking like an airplane wing.

• 21:18Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:19Speaker 02

  And it lifts off.

• 21:20Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Right.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  And so that's why we have to restrict the, um, horsepower at those tracks. So what they figured out, and in fact, this was years ago, right? Um, Junior Johnson found out that if he got up to a car at Daytona, if he got right up behind the car, and by right up, I don't mean like two feet, a foot, I mean like two inches.

• 21:43Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  He went faster.

• 21:45Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 21:46Speaker 02

  He actually felt the car being pulled forward. And that's because of the aerodynamics.

• 21:49Chuck Nice?

  We had that with Lance Armstrong. Remember? Yeah, Lance Armstrong talks about the same thing about like really drafting with, but getting, it's not being behind the guy. It's being almost that your tire is touching his tire and what he's doing is clearing a path for you, but more importantly, he's in effect pulling you. Yeah. So what happens there to make that happen? Cause now everybody can understand when you visually think about cutting through something like cutting through the air or making a wake in the water and then riding inside of that wake.

• 22:29Chuck Nice?

  But the thing that might be a little counterintuitive is the whole pulling, uh, part of that. So can you break those down?

• 22:37Speaker 02

  So if you think about what awake is in the water,

• 22:39Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 22:40Speaker 02

  It's the absence of water, right?

• 22:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:42Speaker 02

  Okay, so awake in the air is an absence of air.

• 22:45Chuck Nice?

  Sweet.

• 22:45Speaker 02

  That's a vacuum.

• 22:46Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 22:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Clean air.

• 22:47Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, clean air. And so you're actually being pulled along.

• 22:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  And drivers can feel that. You can actually hear the engine rev up when they're drafting. And if you're in the car, you could, I tried and tried to get somebody to take me bump drafting, and I never got to do it. But you can actually feel it in the car. You'll feel yourself being pulled ahead.

• 23:05Chuck Nice?

  Interesting. And so as a strategy,

• 23:08Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 23:08Chuck Nice?

  especially in F1 too, right?

• 23:12Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:12Chuck Nice?

  As a strategy, is this, does this keep you on the course longer, save gasoline? Is that the reason why you do that? You're actually using that other guy's work?

• 23:23Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 23:25Speaker 02

  Well, it's actually a little more cooperative in NASCAR. I'm not sure if this is the case in Formula One. In NASCAR, when two cars get together, they both go faster. And it can be like three, five miles an hour faster. Depending on cars.

• 23:39Gary O'Reilly?

  What do you think that's because? Why do you think that is? Because normally, it's the car in front does all the hard work because they're fighting the dirty air and the car behind has got the clean air.

• 23:48Chuck Nice?

  Dirty air.

• 23:49Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, dirty air. Thank you. Behave yourself.

• 23:51Chuck Nice?

  You're dirty air. You're so dirty air.

• 23:56Gary O'Reilly?

  Carry on, doctor.

• 23:57Chuck Nice?

  Sorry.

• 23:57Gary O'Reilly?

  Ignore him.

• 23:58Chuck Nice?

  Sorry, doc. Sorry.

• 23:59Gary O'Reilly?

  Ignore Stewie.

• 24:00Chuck Nice?

  I can't, listen, I can't help myself sometimes. You know, it's like, I'm sorry.

• 24:03Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 24:03Chuck Nice?

  Oh, yeah. I have inappropriate Touaregs. It's like, yeah.

• 24:06Gary O'Reilly?

  You have a, you have a Stewie Griffin thing going on.

• 24:09Chuck Nice?

  Yes. But, okay. So anyway, I'm sorry, I really off-tracked this. Let's get back to Gary's question, which is, why the faster? You know?

• 24:17Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, for the both of them.

• 24:18Chuck Nice?

  For the both of them.

• 24:19Speaker 02

  Sure. If you think about the car by itself, it has to break the air in front, and it's also got forces on the back.

• 24:26Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:26Speaker 02

  So it's got to use energy to get through the front and the back. If I put two cars together, it just looks like one really long car. So you've gotten rid of the force on the back of one and the force in the front of the other. And they go faster. And it keeps adding on. If you can get three cars together, four cars.

• 24:43Chuck Nice?

  Really? Oh, you get a caravan. You know what? That makes sense because when you look at the patterns of NASCAR, okay, I'm not talking about at the beginning of the race where everybody is jockeying. I'm talking about when you're, you know, many laps in and you'll see a line of cars where they're nose to butt, butt to nose, nose to butt, and they're just zipping around and they, it looks like they, I thought it was kind of a coincidence, but now that you pointed this out, this is, they're doing this purposely. This science. This, they're, they're, they're utilizing the science and that's why you get this little convoy of cars. Yeah. Wow.

• 25:23Speaker 02

  Exactly. And this was discovered a long time ago. And it wasn't discovered by engineers or in the lab. It was discovered on the track by a race car driver.

• 25:32Chuck Nice?

  And his name was Ricky Bobby. I'm sorry.

• 25:37Speaker 02

  This was before Ricky Bobby.

• 25:38Chuck Nice?

  This is before Ricky Bobby? This is, what was his name?

• 25:41Speaker 02

  Junior Johnson.

• 25:42Chuck Nice?

  Junior Johnson. Oh, cool, man. That's cool. Speaking of Ricky Bobby, before, I,

• 25:49Chuck Nice?

  no, I'm serious. I'm serious. All right, okay. Speaking of Ricky Bobby. Yes. Uh, I've heard you say, or maybe I read where you said there was a intersectionality of NASCAR fans and science fans. Now, most people would kind of laugh at that statement. You know what I mean? Because you don't see a lot of science fans walking around with their shirt off with a bud in their hand. You know what I mean? Science! I love it. So, what, what, tell me, why do you say that?

• 26:23Speaker 02

  Racing is the art of going fast and it's the science of going fast. And, you know, if you want your driver to win, he has to be the fastest driver. So you want to understand, why isn't he going faster? And, you know, one of the things about NASCAR is you can actually listen in over the radio to the discussions between the driver and his crew chief. And so you can listen to them and you can under you can hear this isn't going right. Okay, I'm gonna make this change. That didn't help. You can hear the driver's aggravation level or rise. You know, you can hear all that. So they want to understand if their driver is not winning, why? And the answer is, almost inevitably, well, sometimes it's human error, but mostly it's science.

• 27:03Chuck Nice?

  That's really cool. I would love to. Do any of these pit guys have a Scottish accent where they're just going, "I'm giving her all she's got. Can't get her any more power."

• 27:17Chuck Nice?

  I'm sorry.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  No, but there should be.

• 27:21Gary O'Reilly?

  Doctor, do not, under any circumstances, encourage him. That's, that, that is, that is like, that is just like, that's three green lights, and he's gone. And there's no, there's no bringing him back. So let's go back, let's go back to drafting.

• 27:36Chuck Nice?

  Okay, go ahead.

• 27:37Gary O'Reilly?

  Park that thought. Handbrake on.

• 27:39Chuck Nice?

  I'm already doing a whole sketch of Star Car in my head.

• 27:43Gary O'Reilly?

  I know you are. Car Trek, whatever you want to call it.

• 27:46Chuck Nice?

  Car Trek, that's even better. Car Trek.

• 27:52Gary O'Reilly?

  He's got me in a tractor beam.

• 27:54Chuck Nice?

  To boldly go where everyone has gone before, left.

• 28:01Chuck Nice?

  All right, sorry. Let's go, let's go.

• 28:04Gary O'Reilly?

  We have the convoy of nose to tail. But surely there'll be, because this is something, I go back to the interview we did with Lance Armstrong, or Neil deGrasse Tyson did, and he said, "I might tuck into one side or the other, depending on crosswind."

• 28:20Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 28:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Depending on actual environment. It's got nothing to do with the track, although we are on banking. He said, "I will sit in that position, left or right behind, to give me maximum drafting." Do we still play the same games with NASCAR?

• 28:36Speaker 02

  You do, but they are not as subject to things like wind.

• 28:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  Or small variations because, you know, a bike is.

• 28:43Chuck Nice?

  Sure. Much lighter and right.

• 28:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:45Chuck Nice?

  And it's wispy. It's wispy compared to a car.

• 28:48Speaker 02

  It is, but you know, one of the things they said about Dale Earnhardt is that he could see the air. He just had a knack for knowing where to be. Another thing you can do is actually the slingshot pass, which has to do with getting up right behind a car. And you can use the aerodynamics to actually slow that person down.

• 29:05Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  And then pass them. Um, one of the drivers said, sometimes you don't have to pass a guy. You can just get so close to him that the back end gets unstable and he'll want you to go around.

• 29:15Chuck Nice?

  Okay, now. He'll give you the pass. He'll give you the pass. Okay, talk about that because a lot of times when you are watching NASCAR. And, uh, we'll talk more about this in the next segment because we're about to take a break. But, uh, it looks like the back, the driver who's following does a pit move on the front driver. It looks as if he's knocking the back of his car and the back of the car spins out. Is this due to the aerodynamics? He's not really bumping the back of the car, but he's just destabilizing the airflow toward a point where the car spins out?

• 29:54Speaker 02

  Sometimes that is the case. You don't have to actually hit a guy to make him go around. You can just get in the right place.

• 30:00Chuck Nice?

  See, you make, you make this sport so exciting. So, okay. So many nuances that we don't even know that there's happening when we're watching this. It just looks like dudes running around in a circle and it is not. It is so much more. The Klingons have their own team. Oh, my God. They're gonna disrupt. That is, that is awesome. That is. It's all about honor. We go left with honor. Doctor, this is something that might appeal to you.

• 30:28Gary O'Reilly?

  Is a loud car faster than a quiet car? Because am I right, there's no mufflers on NASCAR?

• 30:33Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 30:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's no mufflers because a muffler would slow the air getting out of the engine, which would slow the car down. Yeah, so no mufflers are fast. The louder the car, yeah, okay, so it depends. Now, here's another difference between open wheel cars and NASCAR.

• 30:49Chuck Nice?

  Uh huh.

• 30:49Speaker 02

  NASCAR has the engines and they're sort of limited. They want to keep them below 10,000 RPM. Because once you go above 10,000 RPM, you're no longer talking about steel and titanium. You're talking about titanium, aluminum and other really, really expensive.

• 31:04Chuck Nice?

  Alloys.

• 31:05Speaker 02

  What they call exotic alloys.

• 31:06Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you have to because you sacrifice the structural integrity when you get above those speeds. And so you have to be able to maintain that. Otherwise, it's extremely dangerous.

• 31:17Gary O'Reilly?

  Darling, we use carbon fiber.

• 31:19Chuck Nice?

  I know you do. See, that's but now I'm going to say that the carbon fiber is, you know, that's pretty dope.

• 31:26Gary O'Reilly?

  Which is a NASA invention.

• 31:28Chuck Nice?

  That's pretty cool, man.

• 31:29Gary O'Reilly?

  But you were saying, doctor.

• 31:30Chuck Nice?

  Sorry, doctor.

• 31:31Speaker 02

  Okay, but I have to say NASCAR uses carbon fiber too.

• 31:34Chuck Nice?

  Yay!

• 31:36Gary O'Reilly?

  I'll sit down and be quiet.

• 31:37Speaker 02

  Puts and the deck lids, the trunks.

• 31:40Chuck Nice?

  Trunks, yeah.

• 31:40Speaker 02

  The carbon fiber, the front part of the car, the, you know, the part where you bump into with.

• 31:45Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm. The bumper. They don't really have bumpers, but we'll call it that.

• 31:51Speaker 02

  That's carbon fiber. The dashboards are even made of carbon fiber now.

• 31:55Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 31:55Speaker 02

  Because they want to take the weight out of the top of the car.

• 31:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:58Speaker 02

  And get it as low as possible.

• 32:00Chuck Nice?

  As possible, lower the center of gravity.

• 32:01Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 32:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, so you asked about volume. The problem in comparing it is that an F1 car or an Indy car runs at a much higher frequency. And if you think about the sound of like a bee buzzing.

• 32:13Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 32:13Speaker 02

  That's because of how fast they flap their wings.

• 32:15Chuck Nice?

  Correct.

• 32:16Speaker 02

  So NASCAR cars run down around 9,000 RPM. And so you have to take into account the fact that we probably hear the NASCAR cars being louder because they're lower frequency.

• 32:26Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm. So now the question begs the question, I'm just asking this from a general physics standpoint, is, is a loud sound a loss of energy? Is there a way to recapture that energy and put it back into the car?

• 32:43Speaker 02

  This is one of the sad things. No, there is not. So if you think about what happens, if you clap. What you're doing is moving air molecules.

• 32:52Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 32:52Speaker 02

  And air molecules by your hand move a lot.

• 32:55Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 32:56Speaker 02

  And they bump into the ones next to them, they move a little, they move a little, and it keeps going out. The louder the sound, the more energy. So all that energy is being transferred from a few air molecules by your hand

• 33:06Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:06Speaker 02

  to all these air molecules throughout the room.

• 33:09Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  And that energy is lost. There's at present, no way to recapture it.

• 33:14Chuck Nice?

  Wow. Okay. I think I just figured out what I'm going to do to get my Nobel Prize. Yes, I am going to steal it like I always plan to. Okay.

• 33:24Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, we're going to take that break. Doctor, when we come back, I'd love to talk to you about energy recapture that they have in Formula One and is it present in NASCAR? And what you think NASCAR will look like in the future and possibly sound like in the future.

• 33:41Chuck Nice?

  And I would like to talk about crashing. Yes.

• 33:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Anyone listening surprised at that comment?

• 33:49Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 33:50Gary O'Reilly?

  Neither am I.

• 33:51Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 33:51Gary O'Reilly?

  Right, we're going to take that break. More from Dr. Diandra Leslie-Pelecky when we come back.

• 34:28Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back to Playing with Science and our look at the physics of NASCAR with Dr. Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, who, if you've been listening so far, is wonderful and not encouraging Chuck to disbelieve that NASCAR is better than Formula One.

• 34:45Chuck Nice?

  I think we have already figured out the answer there, my friend.

• 34:49Gary O'Reilly?

  I am out.

• 34:49Chuck Nice?

  America, wicked Bobby.

• 34:54Gary O'Reilly?

  Right, energy recapture. In Formula One, they have it where from braking, you can recapture that energy and bring it into the power unit for the car itself. Does NASCAR have anything like that? Is it proposing to bring anything like that into their racing?

• 35:11Speaker 02

  It's really not at this point, and a lot of that has to do with how technical the cars are.

• 35:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:16Speaker 02

  I mean, one of the reasons I'm happy I went with NASCAR for the book instead of Formula One is I can understand the NASCAR car.

• 35:23Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay.

• 35:24Speaker 02

  I mean, it's fairly simple. You know, we got off carbureators a couple of years ago. We had carbureators up until, I think, 2013.

• 35:30Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God.

• 35:34Speaker 02

  And we use leaded fuel.

• 35:35Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God. This is shocking. Who knew this? Formula One. But that's so funny. But why? I mean, is it just tradition? I mean, clearly, what is it?

• 35:49Speaker 02

  Well, you know, as I said, the technology is an issue. To put something like energy recapture on a NASCAR race car, that'd be really hard to do just because of the way it's evolved.

• 35:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:59Speaker 02

  The Formula One car is so much better for that. But sports car racing would be better for it than stock car racing.

• 36:05Chuck Nice?

  Correct.

• 36:06Speaker 02

  Just because of the way the cars are.

• 36:07Chuck Nice?

  Yes, exactly.

• 36:08Speaker 02

  And but I also want to say, you're right. People don't like change, and NASCAR fans especially. There is such a sense of history and tradition.

• 36:17Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 36:18Speaker 02

  They don't like it when you change things.

• 36:20Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 36:20Speaker 02

  And we've changed a lot of stuff recently.

• 36:22Chuck Nice?

  Well, yeah, I mean, I it's funny when you were saying that. I started thinking about like old NASCARs and like what they look like today. And I got to admit, they don't look anything alike anymore. I mean, they have the same basic shape, but there's a lot that has changed. Could you talk about what some of the changes that have happened?

• 36:42Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh. You know, it went from its founding in the 50s. It went from being, starting with a stock car and bulking it up, putting in the tube frame, putting in all the safety devices. To building a chassis that is a really safe cage around the driver and then putting the body on around it.

• 37:01Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:02Speaker 02

  So, you know, these aren't cars you could go out and buy. They look sort of like the cars you could go out and buy.

• 37:08Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:09Speaker 02

  But from a safety point of view, as the speeds got higher, they really had to focus on safety. And when you lose perhaps the premier person in your sport.

• 37:18Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 37:19Speaker 02

  That is something that you all of a sudden decide this needs to be fixed now.

• 37:23Chuck Nice?

  And that was a terrible, terrible tragedy to this day that still resonates, I'm sure, not only throughout the sport, but throughout just all of automotive, uh, uh, culture, period.

• 37:34Speaker 02

  It does. When you go to a race today, um, you will always see people in the stands putting up three fingers on the third lap in memory of Dale Earnhardt.

• 37:42Chuck Nice?

  That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of which, which now, damn, now I wanted to get into crashing, but now I'm now depressed.

• 37:50Gary O'Reilly?

  All right. Well, let's take, let's take you out of your moment of depression.

• 37:54Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 37:54Gary O'Reilly?

  And let's look towards the future. Um, what will NASCAR look like in the future? What will NASCAR, and I say this slightly tongue in cheek, but with an idea of maybe, what will it sound like in the future?

• 38:08Speaker 02

  How far in the future do you want to go?

• 38:11Gary O'Reilly?

  It's up to you, doctor.

• 38:14Chuck Nice?

  I say let's start with the good old fashioned 10 years from now.

• 38:19Speaker 02

  10 years out?

• 38:21Chuck Nice?

  And then go 20 years.

• 38:22Speaker 02

  Okay. 10 years out. I don't think you're going to see a lot of changes. Uh, there will be a new car in 2021.

• 38:29Gary O'Reilly?

  All right.

• 38:30Speaker 02

  And so you will see some changes in aerodynamics. You will probably see, remember, a lot of NASCAR is helping manufacturers sell cars to people because those cars are cool.

• 38:41Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 38:42Speaker 02

  So that's really our primary motivation for doing the stock car racing.

• 38:45Chuck Nice?

  Ooh, very cool.

• 38:47Gary O'Reilly?

  So who's going to be driving them? We had Denica Patrick for a while. Uh, that lady has moved on, but she kind of was beginning to, maybe I'm wrong and you'll correct me, regenerate some of the NASCAR audience?

• 39:03Speaker 02

  Danica had an incredible impact on young females, teens, girls.

• 39:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 39:09Speaker 02

  Because, you know, you look at something, it's like science. When you look at a bunch of scientists and all you see are old white men, you don't think of yourself as being in that lineup.

• 39:19Chuck Nice?

  I know. I think sexy.

• 39:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Maybe, maybe I do.

• 39:27Gary O'Reilly?

  Anyway, you were saying, so where, will we see an influx of female races? Is it down to funding? Is it down to they bring a TV audience with them? Or is it quite simply, they're there because they're good enough?

• 39:47Speaker 02

  Well, Danica had an audience to bring with her from Formula One.

• 39:51Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 39:51Speaker 02

  Right. So, most of the up and coming young women are in their 19, 20, 21 year old range. They don't. But there are a number of really good female drivers coming through the ranks. The problem that you've got is there's a limited number of seats. And, you know, I hate to say this with respect to Formula One, but it's very expensive to run a NASCAR car. It's not Formula One expensive. It's anywhere between 20 and 40 million dollars a year.

• 40:18Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 40:19Speaker 02

  Run a car at the top level.

• 40:21Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 40:21Speaker 02

  So, how are you going to fund that? And a lot of what drivers are having to do today is can they bring money in to fund the car?

• 40:30Chuck Nice?

  Well, this was why you see every single advertisement in the world slapped onto the car itself, because that's, that's who's paying. When you're, when you're watching that race, that's, they're not, they're not just advertising. That's, those people are paying for that team.

• 40:47Gary O'Reilly?

  That advert only works when they're parked, because you're not seeing much at 200 miles an hour.

• 40:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Just thinking about that. Um, let's spin that into Formula One. Um, they, they're going to bring a W Series forward this year for women only. Um, that's 18 or 20 drivers. They're going to race, uh, 270 horsepower, 1.8 Alfa, there's the commercial. 1.8 Alfa Romeo.

• 41:12Chuck Nice?

  C3s.

• 41:13Gary O'Reilly?

  There you go. So. Will that be a good way forward for women racers? Or is it going to meet with more than just wind resistance?

• 41:25Speaker 02

  There has been a lot of objection to the idea of a W Series. And surprisingly, a lot of it has come from women race car drivers. Pippa Man, who's driven an Indy car, has, um, she's not driving right now because she doesn't have the money for a ride.

• 41:41Gary O'Reilly?

  Wow.

• 41:42Speaker 02

  And so she's looking at that and saying, okay, you're putting all this money, and they're putting a lot of money into the W Series. You're putting all this money into these young drivers. Why not use that money and fund people who are already on the cusp of breaking through as opposed to starting over? Lynn St. James, who's another person who's a race car driver, another race car driver, has spoken out against it, saying, you know, racing is one of the few places where men and women can compete together on an even basis. Now, what's interesting is the last I looked at the W Series website, she's not one of the people who's going to help pick those 18 to 20 women who end up in the series.

• 42:19Chuck Nice?

  Hmm, interesting. So let me ask you, and this is a personal question because this is a matter of opinion. Do you think that this becomes something where, um, it's not like a farm league, but it's kind of like, um, generating interest amongst women, young women, that creates an audience that will eventually merge? Or do you think it'll be like the WNBA where it just constantly remains in the shadow of this bigger, bolder, better financed product? And as a result, always seems to be inferior, even though there may be a parody on the court. There is not in the actual, in anything else.

• 42:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think the test of this series is not going to be, does the series become popular? But do the drivers who are in it make their way up to GP1, Formula One?

• 43:11Chuck Nice?

  Interesting.

• 43:12Gary O'Reilly?

  So if it becomes something that can catapult.

• 43:17Chuck Nice?

  A driver out of the W Series with the talent. The big teams, and you know full well, they don't care who's in the seat as long as that person can win. Then, uh, if that person emerges out of W Series, they will get the opportunity. And how, is it gonna take just one, or is it going to take a one, two, three, four, five races before people really get to grips with the idea of, these girls can actually race?

• 43:44Speaker 02

  Well, you know, there's a theory, and I learned this first in the whole women in science thing, called critical mass.

• 43:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:52Speaker 02

  Which is that things don't change until you have fifteen to twenty-five percent women in it.

• 43:56Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 43:57Speaker 02

  So, this is the problem with Danica having gotten in NASCAR. She was one.

• 44:02Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 44:03Speaker 02

  And it's easy to say, that's an anomaly.

• 44:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:06Speaker 02

  We've had, we've had our one, we tried women, it didn't work.

• 44:08Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:09Speaker 02

  So, it's gonna take getting more than just one person in before it really starts to change things.

• 44:14Chuck Nice?

  Interesting. All right, let's switch gears for a second, because I wanna talk about, uh, the, the thing that people love in NASCAR, even though they-

• 44:22Speaker 02

  Oh, you get out of your depression now, haven't you?

• 44:23Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I am, I mean, we-

• 44:24Speaker 02

  You're over that bump.

• 44:25Chuck Nice?

  We hate to, we hate to admit it, because it seems somewhat morose, but we like the crash, okay? That's all there is to it. It's exciting, it's, uh, and by the way, now that these cars are so much safer, it used to be like, a crash happened and you were like, "Oh my god!", and now, like, you fully expect that guy to come crawling out of that cage and wave to the crowd, and you're like, "Yay! Property damage! That's all that happened! Yay!" So-

• 44:53Speaker 02

  You've found a way to trivialize it.

• 44:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, man, because it's true. So, okay, two things. One, is there a physics of the crash? Two, what happens when it's a qualifying lap?

• 45:11Chuck Nice?

  And nobody is around the car at all. And all of a sudden, you see the car start wiggling and then boom into the wall. What happened? Because guess what? You can't race for my team anymore. I'm sorry. You just, do you know how much that damn car costs, boy? Do you know how much that costs? I'm gonna tell you what, you get no allowance for two years and you gonna cut the grass until you pay for that car. So what is the deal with that?

• 45:37Speaker 02

  Okay, Jeff Gordon crashed more than his share of cars when he first started racing. It's sort of expected you are gonna crash a few cars. Why would a driver crash by themselves with no one else there?

• 45:48Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 45:49Speaker 02

  Because there is a limit, there's a grip limit, right? And when you get past that limit, the car starts to slide.

• 45:54Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 45:55Speaker 02

  Racing is all about getting as close to that grip limit as you can without going over. It's like the Price is Right game, except the penalty is a whole lot higher because if you do go over, you hit the wall.

• 46:08Chuck Nice?

  Wow, wow. You just made me like the Price is Right. I just wanna see somebody go over the limit on the Price is Right and just get crushed by a wall now. Oh, okay. You're so easily pleased, aren't you? I am, I really am. All right, so talk about this then, because we had Neil deGrasse Tyson on the show and he was talking about NASCAR and crashing. And he was like, what people don't understand is as long as that car is moving and bouncing and ping ponging all over the place, that's a good thing.

• 46:37Gary O'Reilly?

  The driver's got a chance.

• 46:38Chuck Nice?

  The driver's got a great chance, but it's when the car stops like dead, that's when the most unfortunate thing happens. So what's going on with that?

• 46:50Speaker 02

  Okay, so in physics terms, a moving car has kinetic energy, energy of motion, and that energy is proportional to how fast it's going squared, which means your car going 60 miles an hour has about one ninth of the energy of a NASCAR race car when it's going 180 miles an hour.

• 47:08Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 47:08Speaker 02

  So we're talking about a lot of energy.

• 47:10Chuck Nice?

  A lot of energy.

• 47:11Speaker 02

  When you stop, that energy has to go somewhere.

• 47:14Chuck Nice?

  Uh huh.

• 47:15Speaker 02

  When you pull into the pit, you're slowing down as you're coming in, your brakes get warm, for example. There may be a squeal, sound energy. And so you slow down, all that energy is dissipated over, you know, 100, 200 yards.

• 47:29Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 47:29Speaker 02

  When you crash, energy is dissipated in other ways and the technical terms are spinning energy, crunching energy, and you know, destructive energy. And so the key with crashing is you want to channel all that energy from the race car so that it goes anywhere except your driver.

• 47:47Chuck Nice?

  Right, right. And so, you know, it's funny because when I was learning to drive, they say, they taught you, try your best, no matter what, to avoid a head-on collision of anything. You want to have a glancing blow. If you must hit something, I took a defensive driving course when I was a kid, but if you must hit something, you want it to be at a glancing blow. Can you explain what is the, I suppose, the dissipation of energy is what that is about, right?

• 48:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you think about two cars coming head-on, there is nowhere for the energy to go except into the each car. If they can glance, well, now you've got other places for the energy to go because you're still moving. And so you might lose some of your energy as you hit the other car, but then you'll keep going. And so that's why, you know, if you're bouncing and tumbling along the infield, you're dissipating a little bit of kinetic energy each time.

• 48:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 48:48Speaker 02

  And therefore, you're not having one big crash, which is what's most dangerous for the driver.

• 48:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Which is why they all go around the same direction in NASCAR.

• 48:55Chuck Nice?

  And then the guy crawls out and waves to the crowd, and you're just like, best brakes ever. Yeah.

• 49:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, talking of crashing.

• 49:06Chuck Nice?

  I know.

• 49:07Gary O'Reilly?

  And full stops.

• 49:08Chuck Nice?

  Full stops. We got to.

• 49:09Gary O'Reilly?

  This is the end of our show. Dr. Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, what an honor and a pleasure. Thank you for your insight.

• 49:14Chuck Nice?

  You are the best, Doc.

• 49:16Gary O'Reilly?

  And thank you for your patience with us. And I agree with you, Formula One is better.

• 49:20Chuck Nice?

  Nicely done, my friend.

• 49:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Right. I've been Gary O'Reilly.

• 49:26Chuck Nice?

  And I've been Ricky Bobby.

• 49:28Gary O'Reilly?

  And from Ricky and I, we'll see you all very, very soon. This has been Playing with Science. Hope you've enjoyed it.