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from the issue of February 14, 2008
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Prof features physics of NASCAR in new book
BY KELLY BARTLING, UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
Tapping into the wave of making science more interesting for students, UNL physics professor Diandra Leslie-Pelecky became a NASCAR fanatic by accident.
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| | | NASCAR EXPERIENCE - Diandra Leslie-Pelecky (left) kneels with Andy Randolph, engine technical director for Bill Davis Racing, by the No. 22 Caterpillar Toyota at the Bud Shootout. The car finished seventh in the Feb. 9 race held at the Daytona International Speedway. Photo by John Tierney/New York Times.
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On Feb. 14 Dutton will release a new NASCAR licensed book, "The Physics of NASCAR: How to Make Steel + Gas + Rubber = Speed," that strips away the paint scheme and aura of today's high performance stock car and addresses the engineering and physics of how it's built, tested, raced and built both for speed and safety.
Leslie-Pelecky had no interest in automobile racing until one night, surfing past the Food Network, she happened upon a NASCAR race and saw a group of cars turning a corner. When one car slid and hit the wall while the others maintained their track integrity, she took notice. "There were no mechanical problems, no tires blown," said Leslie-Pelecky. "Why did it happen?" The question literally kept her up that night, so she dove into all things NASCAR to understand the science behind the sport. A task she expected to take 20 minutes on the web ended up turning into a book.
Since then, she's been a denizen at pit row, befriending crew chiefs and mechanics, and discovering that most race teams have one or more PhDs on their staff. She's even driven a car, at Texas Motor Speedway, in a "slightly toned-down" stock car - only 600 horsepower. "Watching a race on TV, you have no idea how different the cars are - they're designed to go left, so if you want to go straight, you have to steer right. The kinetic energy of the cars varies with the square of the speed, so if you double the speed, it's not twice as energetic, it's four times as energetic."
| | NEW BOOK - "The Physics of NASCAR," a new book by Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, includes a chapter devoted to the SAFER wall, which was developed at UNL.
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That and other unknown facts about NASCAR - the second highest-rated regular season sport on TV in the U.S. - riddles Leslie-Pelecky's book, which she hopes will spark a surge of interest in science and math among the legions of fans - especially children who have grown up among NASCAR devotees.
Her involvement in the National Science Foundation-funded program Project Fulcrum - which puts graduate students in K-12 classrooms to help teach science - made her realize the more fun and accessible the subject, the more enthusiastic the students will be and the more they will understand. She hopes to inspire them to crack open a book to figure out how aerodynamics, physiology and chemistry affect their favorite drivers. She has been invited to give a Family Science Day presentation at the upcoming annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston.
"If you look at how many things can change on a car or in a race, there are more than a million combinations," said Leslie-Pelecky. "It's impossible to test all possible combinations, so teams use sophisticated computer algorithms to optimize their testing procedures."
In her book, Leslie-Pelecky describes how NASCAR Legend, Junior Johnson, mastered the concept of aerodynamics to overtake other cars with a wily technique nicknamed "The Draft." Johnson watched as a leading racer's rear window popped out because of the vacuum created by his car following very closely behind. Johnson, even though he had a weaker motor, ended up winning the race because of his understanding of science.
Leslie-Pelecky follows a long tradition of UNL physicists who have tried to popularize science by describing the physics of sports. It started with the late Ted Jorgensen's "Physics of Golf" in 1993, followed by Tim Gay's "Football Physics" in 2004, and continues with Leslie-Pelecky's new fascination with NASCAR.
One of the best resources turned out to be right across campus in UNL engineer Dean Sicking and the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility, which played a major role in developing the "soft walls" that help dissipate energy in case of a crash. Sicking and his team have saved countless drivers from serious injury.
Leslie-Pelecky visited the NASCAR Research and Development Center, which has made many safety enhancements to the sport, and a number of race teams. She spent a lot of time at the track with the No. 19 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series team of Elliott Sadler.
"Elliott really understands physics," she says. "He uses different words than I would use to describe what happens, but he has a gut-level understanding of physics that most physicists never develop."
The No. 19 car had a challenging season last year, so Leslie-Pelecky is especially looking forward to meeting up with the crew again in Daytona to see how they'll fare this year.
The book release date (Feb. 14) is the day of the Gatorade Duel at Daytona International Speedway. The official opening of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series is the Daytona 500, Feb. 17.
In addition to the AAAS event, Leslie-Pelecky will be conducting book tour and publicity events while continuing her research and other work this semester at UNL. A new academic opportunity is taking her to The University of Texas at Dallas where she'll join her husband in May.
More about the science of motorsports can be found at www.stockcarscience.com.
GO TO: ISSUE OF FEBRUARY 14
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