Richard Childress Racing January 25, 2013 Science on the Fast
Track "Racing teaches you to think broad, and people who are
used to working in intense environments are valued members of
the team." Author: Rachel Kaufmann Date: Jan. 11, 2013 Along a
racetrack's "pit road," crew chiefs and race engineers for
various NASCAR teams await their drivers' inevitable pit stop.
The souped-up racers need fresh tires and to top off their fuel.
Every 30-second lap, the ground shakes as 43 cars whip past at
200 miles per hour. Stock car racing isn't rocket science—and
yet the track is usually crawling with people who are, in
effect, rocket scientists. You might not expect it from a sport
that evolved out of bootleggers racing their moonshine down
twisty Appalachian roads, but modern racing teams use
computational fluid dynamics simulations, wind tunnels, and the
highly technical know-how of engineers to eke milliseconds out
of each driver's lap time. "If you go to these race shops, you
think you walked into a hospital opera