StarTalk Radio - #ICYMI - NASCAR vs Formula 1

Episode Date: March 14, 2019

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. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Nice. And this is Playing With Science. Today we endeavor to settle one of motorsports' biggest issues, which is, what is better, in scientific terms, Chuck's muscle-bound NASCAR, or my turn right as well as left super-sleek Formula One races. Ah, I see that little dig you snuck in there already,

but we know NASCAR's murica, damn it. Murica! That'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. We've called on the services of an expert.

We have, and we are really excited to have another incredible guest at the top of their game, which means Dr. Deandra Leslie-Pelecki will adjudicate and decide which one of us takes the checkered flag first. And you know she's good. She's got three names. That means she's smart.

Yes. Well, she's going to 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 doctors? Yes, Dr. Deandra Leslie Pellecki is the author of The Physics of NASCAR. She blogs about the science

of auto racing at building speed, appears every Friday on the Sirius XM Speedway satellite radio program. It's NASCAR Channel 90. That was nice, man. And comments on the current satellite radio program. It's NASCAR Channel 90. And she, that was nice, man.

And comments on the current tech-related events. She's a PhD 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. And one thing you didn't say was the doctor's speciality of nanotechnology, particularly nanomedicine, which I would love to do a show on that.

That would be incredible. Dr. D'Andro, welcome to Playing With Science. I am happy to be here. Yeah, we are so happy to have you. All right, let's get into the business. Because I'm polite, we'll start with NASCAR. All right. Yes.

The better of the two sports, clearly. To be decided. Right. Right. New regulations introduced recently mean cars are slower, that being slightly slower. So, please,

how do slower cars make for better racing? Well, you know, it's a little different than if you're looking at a field like, say, drag racing, where it's really all about the speed. Steve Letart, who used to be Jeff Gordon's crew chief, told me once, anyone can go fast straight. This is true. Turning fast.

Yeah, turning fast is where the challenge is. And so when you're coming to 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. You're going around the corners. So you've got centripetal acceleration 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. Okay. So now that you actually got into that, why don't you, I didn't want to get into it 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? Because some are like, oh, there's three parts of a turn. There's six parts of a turn. Oh, there's nine parts. There are 19 parts of a turn, boy. That's what you don't understand. And the other thing 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. You know what I mean?

and it makes it sound even better. Know what I mean? So anyway, the other thing is what you described when you talked about the braking and the acceleration is, what do they call it? 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.

Sure. Well, let's start with one of the differences between NASCAR and Formula One, which is there are as many turns as the driver has time to explain. So you can't have 19 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.

Woo! Yeah, and sometimes not even the driver. Yes, that would be me driving the car. I have no idea what this car is doing. That's the bit where the driver and the wall, yeah. Right. So go ahead. Carry on, please.

Yeah, so this is where the driver has to convey to the crew chief what the wall. Yeah. Right. So go ahead. Carry on, please. Yeah. So this is where the driver has to convey to the crew chief what the car is doing. And to say it's slow around 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? Right. 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. Right. 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 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...

Right, yeah. When you have a big high box truck and then it's up on two wheels because if it's going around the corner, it looks like the truck may tip over. Right. And it may tip into the turn. Right. That's because of the forces on a bank 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. Right. So 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 going to be harder for me to pull it now, right? Right. That tire's got more grip. Right. But I don't want weight on my car. I'm European. We do thin. We do thin.

It's true. 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 does NASCAR go about creating that? 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 You've got nothing good to say about it. 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.

So what are the downforce effects happening in NASCAR that gives you the grip on the tires the same way it does in F1? 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. So there is more weight due to the mechanical. We call that mechanical load. So the NASCAR race car has more mechanical load.

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 an extremely tiny force, but there are a lot of them. Billions and billions. Literally billions and billions and probably more. Yeah. And so NASCAR uses the same thing. There's a wing 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. Right. And they're actually trying to suck that car to the ground. Right. And that's not the game NASCAR plays. Yes. And so there isn't really that stuff going on in the bottom of the car in NASCAR. So also, too, when you look at the difference between the constructions of the two cars, the Formula One car is a lot lower to the ground.

How does that change the performance of the car? ground. How does that change the performance of the car? Well, you mentioned load transfer. Yes. The amount of load transfer, think about the difference between driving an SUV or like a little Miata or an MG. Right. 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 than an MG. Gotcha. Wow. That is cool. Getting down, dude. Yeah, we're getting down to it.

You got to get down with the center of gravity. That's right. That's why they're low slung. That's why they're in the... So go back because you've got a very predictable track for NASCAR. I'm not breaking any news here. But, yeah,

thank you. Because all I seem to do at the moment is watch my TV with breaking news. 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 pit lane or a support team, the driver himself has to have such amazing intuition and basically have a physical extension of themselves in the car. Did you just admit that NASCAR drivers are better than F1 drivers? No. What? No.

Okay. Don't twist my words. Sorry, Doc. Go ahead, Doc. Sort of sounded to me like he did. I'm not doing well with the numerics here, am I? But go ahead. Do either of you drive a stick shift? Yes, I've done. Okay, so you know, when you're driving along, when you have your hand on that stick shift, you are feeling the car. 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. 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. You and food again. I know, I'm so hungry. 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? 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? 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. There are three road courses. Now you're teasing me.

They can turn right. Now you're teasing me. It is possible. I've seen it myself in person. All right. This is the only car you can buy with no right indicator. Sorry, doctor, you were saying. No, that's fine.

So as you're, I'm trying to remember what you asked. 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 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? 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 LaTarte 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. Yeah, and crushes your hand. Practically, yeah, you don't want to do that. Unless you're very fast. It's a really good game of hot potato. 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? So in the 1970s, NASCAR had what they called the tire wars. And basically everyone could pick their own tire manufacturer. Oh, wow. And the tire manufacturers were trying to outdo each other.

And, you know, sometimes race car drivers are their own worst enemies. And they would much rather go fast than be safe. Right. We had some unfortunate accidents that could have been prevented. And since that time, NASCAR has gone with one tire supplier. It is Goodyear. It's been Goodyear forever. Yeah. In fact, I got to tour the factory where they make those tires 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 not allowed to variate yeah they can't do anything to those tires once they get so now are they like the tires in f1 where you have the slicks you have some very light treads for 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.

Yeah, they're called compounds. So you have a different compound for different conditions. But what it sounds like is the tire manufacturer Goodyear has kind of gone in a generalized solution by manufacturing a tire

particularly for one track and then the next track and then the next track and then every team gets that. Whereas in F1, your team can run with slicks, I can run with whatever it is. You can run with the tread, You can run with slicks. It's up to the team to determine what they think is best for the track.

Yes. One of the things, having spent eight hours in a downpour at the Petit Le Mans at Atlanta, 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 at road courses we might use rain tires but in general we don't sound like good old-fashioned common sense to me sounds like you don't like racing to me because my boys don't mind getting wet because they'll just duck into the pit lane, slap on some wet weather tires,

and then get out there and play who goes fastest again. And I'm going to tell you something. Now, that sounds more uniquely American than the other thing about going indoors, so I'm going to give you points on that one because I got to admit. I don't want sympathy points. Yeah, I got to admit, like, you know,

Americans love their sports to, you know, we love football and when it rains or snows or hails or even lightnings, 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. I think we gotta take a break.

Alright, we will take that break. Yeah. I am still right. F1 is better. And when we come back, I will take that break. Yeah. 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. Deandra Leslie Pleckey when we return. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Playing With Science. Gary O'Reilly and Chuck Nice here with one of the most interesting guests we've had on, Dr. Deandra Leslie-Pelecki.

Yes. Who nanotechnology, nanomedicine, the physics of NASCAR. Yeah. And what we will only describe as NASCAR expertise. Extraordinaire. To the square root of something rather large. That's right, my friend. There we go.

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. No, I think, if you remember, way back to the last section, that I got sympathy points for driving in the rain. Listen, I'm going to give you that, okay? That sounds like you would think, you know, as a matter of fact, so is it more dangerous?

Okay, let me rephrase that before I say something really idiotic. that before I say something really idiotic. In NASCAR particularly, is driving in the rain something that is so dangerous that it just doesn't make sense to do it? Yeah, again, that goes to the weight difference. So you have to have friction to keep the car on the track. The heavier the car is, the more friction you need. 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 heavier the car is, the more friction you need. That's right. 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 these are closed cockpit cars, unlike the F1 car. And we tried 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. So, you know, they'd have to put in a defroster and blinker lights and all those things. It's just more trouble. Can you imagine him doing that and then the police pull up next to him? That'd be so funny. Give him a ticket. 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 want a fat kid on the back of that sled. You went there again, didn't you? Yeah, exactly. By the way, I do feel as if you're taking back those sympathy points. All right, Doctor, you? Yeah, exactly. But by the way, I do feel as if you're taking back those sympathy points. 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? Yeah, there's no bumping in Formula One. Well, there is. It's just not there

for any drafting benefit. It's there because you don't like the guy in front. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the whole concept of unavoidable contact is utterly foreign to NASCAR, I'm afraid. It is part of the game. Yeah, it's a contact

sport. It is a contact sport. Four times a year, we go to two very big tracks. So, Daytona and Talladega. One is two and a third miles, one is two and a half. At those tracks, we actually run a plate that restricts the amount of air coming into the engine. And if you restrict the air coming into 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 at those tracks. Wow, that's like there are cars on the street that have 450 horsepower 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 right and it lifts off yeah right and so that's why we have to restrict the horsepower at those tracks. So what they figured out, and in fact, this was years ago, right? 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.

Right. He went faster. Yeah. He actually felt the car being pulled forward and that's because of the aerodynamics 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. So what happens there to make that happen? Because 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. But the thing that might be a little counterintuitive is the whole pulling part of that. So can you break those down? So if you think about what a wake is in the water, it's the absence of water, right? Right. Okay. So awake in the air is an absence of air. Sweet. That's a vacuum. There you go. Clean air.

Gotcha. Yeah. Clean air. And so you're actually being pulled along. Right. 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 can...

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. Interesting. And so as a strategy, especially in F1 too, right? Oh, yeah. As a strategy, 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? Yeah. 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 what 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. Dirty air. Yes, dirty air. Thank you. Behave yourself. You're dirty air. You're so dirty air. Carry on, Doctor.

Sorry. Ignore him. Sorry, Doc. Sorry. Ignore Stewie. I can't help myself sometimes. You know, it's like, I'm sorry. Yeah.

I have inappropriate Tourette's. No, you have a Stewie Griffin thing going on. 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.

For the both of them. For the both of them. 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. 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 on the front of the other, and they go faster. And it keeps adding on.

If you can get three cars together, four cars. Really? 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 it looks like they, I thought it was kind of a coincidence. But now that you pointed this out, they're doing this purposely. It's science. They're utilizing the science. And that's why you get this little convoy of cars. Yeah. Wow.

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 and his name was ricky bobby i'm sorry this was before ricky this is before ricky bobby what was his name junior johnson junior johnson. Oh, cool, man. That's cool. Speaking of Ricky Bobby. No, I'm serious. I'm serious.

All right, okay. Speaking of Ricky Bobby. Yes. 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 and a hand.

You know what I mean? Science! I love it. So tell me, why do you say that? Racing is the art of going fast and it's the science of going fast. And 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 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 hear, this isn't going right. Okay, I'm going to make this change. That didn't help. You can hear the driver's aggravation level or rise. 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. 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. Cotton, I can't give her any more power. I'm sorry.

No, but there should be. Doctor, do not under any circumstances encourage him. That is just like, that's three green lights and he's gone. There's no bringing him back. So let's go back to drafting. Okay, go ahead. Park that thought. Handbrake on.

I'm already doing a whole sketch of Starcar in my head. I know you are. Kartrek, whatever you want to call it. my head. I know you are. Car Trek. Whatever you want to call it. Car Trek. That's even better. Car Trek. He's got me in a tractor beam.

To boldly go where everyone has gone before. Left. All right. Sorry. Let's go. Let's go. 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 in to one side or the other, depending on crosswind. Yeah. Depending on actual environment,

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

Or small variations because, you know, a bike is... Sure. Much lighter and, right. Much lighter and wispy. It's wispy compared to a car. It is. But 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 and then pass them. 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. 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 we'll talk more about this in the next segment because we're about to take a break. But 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 to a point where the car spins out? 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. See, you make this sport so exciting. So many nuances that we don't even know that are 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 got a disruptor. That is awesome. It's all about honor. We go left with honor.

Doctor, this is something that might appeal to you Is a loud car faster than a quiet car? Am I right? There's no mufflers on NASCAR? Yeah There's no mufflers because a muffler would slow the air getting out of the engine Which would slow the car down 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. 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. Alloys. What they call exotic alloys.

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. Darling, we use carbon fiber. I know you do. But now I'm going to say that the carbon fiber is, you know, that's pretty dope. Which is a NASA invention.

Yeah, that's pretty cool. But you were saying, doctor. Sorry, doctor. Okay, but I have to say, NASCAR uses carbon fiber too. Yay! I'll sit down and be quiet. The hoods and the decklids, the trunks. Trunks, yeah.

The carbon fiber, the front part of the car, the of the car, the part where you bump into it. The bumper. They don't really have bumpers, but we'll call it that. That's carbon fiber. The dashboards are even made of carbon fiber now because they want to take the weight out of the top of the car and get it as low as possible. Lower the center of gravity. Yeah. So you asked about volume.

The problem in comparing it is that an f1 car or an indycar runs at a much higher frequency and if you think about the sound of like a bee buzzing that's because of how fast they flap their wings correct 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. So now the question begs the question, I'm just asking this from a general physics standpoint, is a loud sound a loss of energy? Is there a way to recapture that energy and put it back into the car? 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. That's right. And air molecules by your hand move a lot. Okay. 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 to all these air molecules throughout the room. Okay. And that energy is lost. There is at present no way to recapture it. 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. All right. We're going to steal it like I always plan to. Okay. 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. And I would like to talk about crashing. Yes. Anyone listening surprised at that comment? in the future. And I would like to talk about crashing. Yes! Anyone listening surprised at that comment? Yes! Neither am I. That's right.

Right, we're going to take that break. More from Dr. Deandra Leslie-Pelecki when we come back. Welcome back to Playing With Science and our look at the physics of NASCAR with Dr. Deandra Leslie-Pelecki, who, if you've been listening so far, is wonderful and not encouraging Chuck to disbelieve that NASCAR is better than Formula One.

I think we have already figured out the answer there, my friend. not encouraging Chuck to disbelieve that NASCAR is better than Formula One. I think we have already figured out the answer there, my friend. I am out now. America. Wicked Bobby. 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? It's really not at this point. And a lot of that has to do with how technical the cars are. 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. Okay. I mean, it's fairly simple. You know, we got off carburetors a couple of years ago. We had carburetors up until I think 2013. Oh my God.

And we use leaded fuel. 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? 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. Right. The Formula One car is so much better for that. But sports car racing would be better for it than stock car racing. Correct.

Just because of the way the cars are. Yes, exactly. 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. Yeah. They don't like it when you change things. Okay. And we've changed a lot of stuff recently. Well, yeah.

I mean, 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. Can you talk about what some of the changes that have happened? 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. Right. 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. 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, that is something that you all of a sudden decide,

this needs to be fixed now. 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 culture, period. It does. When you go to a race today, you will always see people in the stands putting up three fingers on the third lap in memory of Dale Earnhardt. That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaking of which, which now, damn, now I wanted to get into Crassy, but now I'm depressed. I don't want to get into it. Let's take you out of your moment of depression. Okay. And let's look towards the future. 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? 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? How far in the future do you want to go? It's up to you, Doctor. I say let's start with the good old-fashioned 10 years from now. And then go 20 years. Okay, 10 years out. I don't think you're going to see a lot of changes. There will be a new car in 2021. All right. 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. Okay. So that's really our primary motivation for doing the stock car racing. Very cool. So who's going to be driving them? We have Danica Patrick for a while. 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? Danica had an incredible impact

on young females, teens, girls. Yeah. 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. I know. I think. I do. Sexy. Maybe I do. Anyway, you were saying, so where will we see an influx of female racers? 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? Well, Danica had an audience to bring with her from Formula One. That's 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 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 a year. Yeah. On a car at the top level. Wow. 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?

Well, this was why you see every single advertisement in the world slapped onto the car itself because that's who's paying. When you're watching that race, they're not just advertising. Those people are paying for that team. That only works when they're parked because you're not seeing much at 200 miles an hour. Just thinking about that. Let's spin that into Formula One.

They're going to bring a W Series forward this year for women only. I think it's going to be 18 or 20 drivers. They're going to race 270 horsepower, 1.8. For women only, I think it's about 18 or 20 drivers. They're going to race 270 horsepower, 1.8 Alfa. There's the commercial. 1.8 Alfa Romeo. C3s. 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? 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 Mann, who's driven an IndyCar, she's not driving right now because she doesn't have the money for a ride. Wow. 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, 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 now one of the people who's gonna help pick those 18 to 20 women who end up in the series. 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 it's not like a farm league, but it's kind of like 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 parity on the court, there is not in the actual, in anything else. 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 1. Interesting.

So if it becomes something that can catapult 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 going to 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 well you know there's a theory and i learned this first in the whole women in science thing called critical mass right which is that things don't change until you have 15 to 25 percent women in it gotcha so this is the

problem with danica having gotten in nascar she was one. And it's easy to say that's an anomaly. Right. We've had our one. We tried women. It didn't work. Right. So it's going to take getting more than

just one person in before it really starts to change things. Interesting. All right. Let's switch gears for a second because I want to talk about

the thing that people love in NASCAR. Oh, you've got out of your depression now, haven't you? Yeah, I am. You're over that bump. 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. 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 you fully expect that guy to come crawling out of that cage and wave to the crowd. And you're 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. You found a way to trivialize it. 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 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 cost, boy? Do you know how much that cost? I'm going to tell you what, you get no allowance for two years and you won't cut the grass until you pay for that car. So what is the deal with that? Okay. Jeff Gordon crashed more

than his share of cars when he first started racing. It's sort of expected you are going to crash a few cars. Why would a driver crash by themselves with no one else there? Yes. Because there is a limit. There's a grip limit, right? And when you get past that limit, the car starts to slide. 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. Wow. Wow. You just made me like the Price is Right. I just want to 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. 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. The driver's got a chance. 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? 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. Okay. So we're talking about a lot of energy. A lot of energy. When you stop, that energy has to go somewhere. 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. 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. 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? Yeah. If you think about two cars coming head on, there is nowhere for the energy to go except into 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 if you're bouncing and tumbling

along the infield, you're dissipating a little bit of kinetic energy each time. Right. And therefore, you're not having one big crash, which is what's most dangerous for the driver. Which is why they all go around the same direction in NASCAR. And then the guy crawls out and waves to the crowd, and you're just like, best brakes ever. Yeah.

Well, talking of crashing. I know. And full stops. Full stops. This is the end of our show. Dr. Deandra Leslie-Polecki, what an honor and a pleasure. Thank you for your insight. You are the best, Doc.

And thank you for your patience with us. And I agree with you. Formula One is better. Nicely done, my friend. Right. I've been Gary O'Reilly. And I've been Ricky Bobby.

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