NASCAR Airflow Now Visible On TV
New software enables viewers to see the airflow around race cars, and why drafting is good strategy. Steve Mirsky reports.
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NASCAR Airflow Now Visible On TV--August 15, 2007
NASCAR racing on TV now offers a view the drivers can never get. New software allows viewers to see the air flow around the speeding cars in real time. University of Washington computer scientists had developed software that simulated the way fire and smoke behave in real time, for training simulations for firefighters and for more realistic video games. But one application wound up with NASCAR.
Called Draft Track, the technology was used to generate images of air flow for the first time in late July, for the Allstate 400 NASCAR event in Indianapolis. Draft Track calculates air flow over the speeding cars and displays it as either a green, blue, yellow or red stream behind the vehicles. The colors represent different speeds and directions of air flow when two or more cars approach each other. The idea is for the viewer to get a visceral feel for drafting—the strategy of tucking in behind another car and riding efficiently in its slip stream. Drafting lets drivers pick up speed and save fuel. After which, they can really air it out.
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