cars

Host Lisa Van Pay meets with NSF-funded scientists Yang-Shao Horn and Yogi Surendranath at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as they take on the hydrogen energy challenge. Hydrogen bonds are an extremely efficient way to store energy, and scientists would like to capture this energy to power all sorts of things—from cars to laptops. Unlike other fuel sources, hydrogen can’t be harvested easily, so we have to make it. From the importance of developing an effective catalyst to speed...

Host Lisa Van Pay visits the scientists and engineers working to make the electric car of the future a reality today. One of the toughest parts is storing enough potential energy to get you where you’re going, and in this case, it’s all about the battery. Graduate student Katharine Stroukoff from the University of Texas-Austin explains how her research may help build a better battery, while Mike Nawrot and Dan Lauber, members of the MIT electric vehicle team, describe the advantages of...

Increasing the time of a collision from a tenth of a second to two tenths of a second can make a huge difference in the number of G's a driver experiences. The car, the track, seat belts, and seat construction spread out the force of impact and save lives.

Anyone can go fast straight: The challenge is turning. It takes more than ten thousand pounds of force to get a racecar around Turn 3 at Texas Motor Speedway at 180 mph. All that force comes from four tiny patches of rubber--the only thing keeping the car on the track and out of the wall.

NASCAR tires don't have "air pressure" because they're filled with nitrogen. The culprit responsible for increasing tire pressure during a race is friction. Using dry nitrogen gas helps the team predict how hot the tire will get and how much the pressure will "build" during a race.

850 horses all lined up--that's how much power a NASCAR Sprint Cup engine has. The engine's job is to convert the energy in fuel to speed. NASCAR engines do it faster and more efficiently than passenger car engines.

NASCAR corners are divided into three parts because the car's grip changes in different parts of a turn. The higher center of gravity in the new car challenges crew chiefs to minimize weight shift around a turn. Equipment like the seven-post rig helps, but the ultimate test is on the track.

"Frightening" is how Jeff Gordon describes fire, even though he knows he's protected head to toe (and right down to his underwear) by fire-resistant Nomex fabric. Firesuits and the associated gear don't just protect drivers from fire, though--they decrease the rate of heat transfer, giving the driver a little more time to move somewhere cooler.

A racecar driver is like Goldilocks: The car always seems to be too loose or too tight. Getting the right balance is hard because the weight of the fuel changes and the tires wear during each green-flag run. Understanding the science is how crew chiefs make the car “just right”.

"Loud is fast" Brian Vickers tells us, and speed is one reason racecars don't have mufflers. Experiencing a NASCAR race means feeling the roar of the engines as well as hearing them. It's all good--as long as you’ve got your ear protection.