Posts made in August, 2012

Lee Sicilio’s outlook on racing is “This is a WE deal, not a ME deal”. He is eager to grant the credit for his spectacular successes to the major contributors who helped him get there. This approach is both commendably noble and very smart. The key team members that he has attracted with this approach are quite possibly the best in the sport, and their loyalty is absolutely the best in the sport. Spectacularly stunning is not adequate to describe just how good these guys are. I wish that I could show you every detail of the design and build quality that Ryan Fain put into “Twilight Zone”, which is Lee’s newly constructed land speed racing car. The sheet metal is 100% original steel from a 1969 Dodge Charger, with an aftermarket...

I’ve done Indy and Oshkosh as an on-the-job engineer, and I still want to do Bonneville and Reno. Well, next week I’ll get my first taste of the salt at the Bonneville Speed Week event! I’m excited about that as I ever get about anything. In addition to supporting a ThinkFast Engineering customer, I will also be marketing TFE to competitors who are searching for aero performance, aero stability, or both. Here is the flyer that I will leave with prospective customers:  Wish me...

If you are in the mood to learn how to make your own setup pad on a thin budget, and to learn some of the many things that you can do with it, here is an article I wrote for NASA’s excellent new e-zine called Speed News: http://www.snmagcurrent.com/publication/?i=120245 Flip forward to page 54 and dig in, then read through it all for a great look into the world of the National Auto Sport Association. I’m honored to have the opportunity to write for Speed News, and this article will hopefully be the first of many....

When a tire is slipping on the pavement as a result of hard cornering, braking, or accelerating, that slipping heats the tread rubber. A tire generates the most grip when that heating is uniform across the width of the tread because every point on the tread generates the same force on the ground. That heating is a good thing because racing tread rubber generates the most grip at a temperature that is higher than ambient. Of course there can be too much of a good thing, too. Autocross tires are designed to perform best at a lower temperature than track racing tires because an autocross run is over before a pace lap is halfway around the track. The common method of measuring tire temperature is a needle probe pyrometer that is stuck into the tread as soon as the...