If the two-car breakaway draft in NASCAR Sprint Cup series is new to you, here is how a Dodge engineer explains the elements of how it works.
On Saturday night, Kurt Busch went to Victory Lane with an assist from his virtual teammate and defending Daytona 500 Winner, Jamie McMurray. Why has the two-car draft been so dominant during Speedweeks at Daytona this year? “The two-car draft has been possible because A) the track has a lot of grip; B) the track is really smooth in the corners,” explained Howard Comstock, Dodge Motorsports Engineering, NASCAR.
“When the track was bumpy in the corners (before the repave), there was no way the cars could maintain contact through the corners because of the undulations (waves and bumps) in the track. Now that the track is smooth with a lot of grip, the cars can go wide open through the corners. Remember, everyone said that you could go wide open at Talladega, but you can’t go wide open at Daytona because of the lack of grip and bumpy corners. Previously, if two cars stayed together in the corner, you’d run the risk of crashing. There wasn’t enough grip. One of the cars would slip. It was too bumpy and when the bumpers wouldn’t align, the cars would make contact. Now the track is smooth and has a lot of grip, especially last night (Saturday night) – 50 degrees F and no wind. You couldn’t get any more perfect conditions for a race. (Two-car drafting) was magnified in the race because there was good grip in the track, no bumps, cool temperatures, no wind; the cars were going to go fast.” So why didn’t a three-car draft work Saturday night? “It’s really hard for three cars to stay in line and go through the corners and not lose contact. There’s so much orchestration there that it’s all but impossible,” said Comstock. “The second car that is doing the pushing (in a three-car draft) doesn’t get the air taken off his spoiler so he’s got enough air on his spoiler that he can maintain grip in the corner and continue to push. You couldn’t go as fast as we go now because you couldn’t maintain the speed in the corners. You would have to get off the other car. Now you don’t have to get off the car in front of you. You just push it all the way around. If you push all the way around, that momentum is going to build and now you’re racing really fast.” Do you anticipate seeing 20, two-car packs during the Daytona 500 on Sunday? “If you noticed last (Saturday) night, there were two or three two-car breakaways and the rest of the pack was having trouble getting organized into two-car teams. If you’re not organized, you’re so much slower and end up falling back with a bunch of cars in a huge pack. When that happens, it looks like guys get frantic and that’s when the big wreck happens,” Comstock explained.
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