NASCAR WCUP: Aerodynamic Alliance Dominates Charlotte Qualfiying In RAD's First Test
28 May 1999
RAD Dominates Charlotte QualifyingThe aerodynamic alliance of Richard Childress Racing, Andy Petree Racing and Dale Earnhardt Inc. (RAD) placed all six of its Winston Cup teams in the top 15 in qualifying at Charlotte on Wednesday. Four cars occupied the top eight spots. Since its inception in December, RAD has concentrated on the 1999 Monte Carlo, but when its introduction was delayed until 2000, RAD turned its attention to the current Monte Carlos seeking improvement at high downforce tracks like Charlotte.
RAD Aero Engineer Louis Duncan said Charlotte is the first test of the technology developed through computer simulations, wind tunnel work, track testing and a great deal of tweaking. Duncan has a long history in racing. His most recent assignment was providing aerodynamic support to the Ford Motor Company stock car programs. Duncan and his son Brad now work exclusively with RAD.
RAD's Charlotte Qualifying Results
3rd Kenny Wallace Andy Petree Racing 5th Steve Park Dale Earnhardt Inc. 6th Kenny Schrader Andy Petree Racing 8th Dale Earnhardt Jr. Dale Earnhardt Inc. 11th Mike Skinner Richard Childress Racing 15th Dale Earnhardt Richard Childress Racing RAD Aero Engineer Louis Duncan On... ...reaction to Charlotte qualifying:
"My goal was to have all six cars in the top five. (laughing) You have to always strive for the impossible. I believe the RAD teams will race better on Sunday than we qualified."
...RAD's purpose:
"The crux of what we do at RAD is perform wind tunnel testing and computer simulations to develop ideas for track testing. Track testing is the acid test of what we do. It might work in the wind tunnel or on the computer, but it means nothing if it doesn't work on the track"
...RAD's recent concentration and performance:
"These teams had excellent aerodynamic programs for their Daytona and Talladega cars. We are hoping to find improvement on the downforce program. There are five or six very high-speed tracks like Charlotte, Atlanta, Indy and Pocono where downforce is very, very important and the correct front to rear balance is extremely important. So, we have been really concentrating on those factors. It's all about downforce and downforce balance front to rear. We have been concentrating on the downforce program and have most of our research, not 100 percent, available now. This is the first race our teams have had time to either rebuild or build new cars based on what we have learned. I got my report card tonight. I'd give us a B+."
...wind tunnel, computer simulations, tweaking & communications:
"We don't spend a lot of time in the wind tunnel. Just enough to understand what makes better downforce. We spend most of our time tweaking body panels to make them perform within NASCAR dimensions and templates. We make several test parts to see what makes a better racecar. I'm pleased with the communication. That's my responsibility - to communicate to the teams. No team has held back anything. If one of the teams wants to test a rocker panel and it works they don't mind giving that information to the other teams. Each of the teams has full access and shares all aerodynamic information."
Steve Hmiel, DEI Technical Director and RAD Representative:
"RAD is a group of smart people working together under the guidance of Louis Duncan, who has a lot of Winston Cup aerodynamic experience, that has allowed us an aerodynamic improvement over where we were at the beginning of the year. We're not doing anything special. We are just testing real hard, listening to a real smart man, and working together. All of us were in a hole aerodynamically and we needed to dig ourselves out. We are talking to each other a lot. We'd rather race each other than race the whole crowd. Because we expected the new Monte Carlo to come out this year we haven't really worked too much on these current cars. When we realized the new cars weren't coming we said 'heck lets work on what we have now. All of these RAD teams have examples of a car that is a copy of RAD test car that we built about two months ago. We feel pretty good about what we are learning and applying it on the racetrack."
Steve Park on RAD:
"I really don't know much about that technical stuff. Our Pennzoil Monte Carlo sure reaped the benefits from it and that's all that matters. This is our first car that we have built that uses all the RAD technology and as you can see a top five qualifying run is pretty good and everyone else ran pretty well also. RAD is cool with me."
Dale Earnhardt Jr. on RAD:
"I don't know what all they are doing, but that Budweiser car was right Wednesday night."
Teams went out for a two-hour practice session today to make final adjustments and fine tune their machines for the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, May 30.
Editors Note: For hundreds of hot racing photos and racing art, be sure to visit The Racing ImageGalleries and the Visions of Speed Art Gallery.