NASCAR Then and Now - Ben White [13]
Today’s Sprint Cup car paint schemes are designed by professionals to ensure instant recognition for sponsors. This is Carl Edwards’ Roush Fenway Racing Ford Fusion in August 2008. The teams change the cars’ liveries each year— sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes with completely new looks—to keep the cars looking fresh.
Today’s Sprint Cup teams will often arrange oneoff sponsorship deals to promote certain products or events. Here, Jeff Gordon’s No. 24 Chevy Impala SS is wrapped in a special paint scheme at the October 2009 race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway to mark the DVD release of the hit movie Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
Engines
In NASCAR, the drivers and cars are the visual show. But it’s the 800-horsepower engines that provide the soundtrack, and it’s the roar of the engines that stirs the soul of every NASCAR fan. In some ways, the NASCAR engine has not changed a great deal over the last several decades. While other race series have used or experimented with fuel injection, superchargers, and turbochargers and run engines with four, six, eight, ten, or even twelve cylinders, NASCAR has continued to run to the tried-and-true formula of carbureted V-8 engines. Today’s, teams are strictly limited with what they can do to their powerplants, but some of the world’s smartest engineers are working constantly to find that little extra edge.
This is a Petty Enterprises engine from the early 1960s. Chrysler’s 427-cubic-inch big-block Hemi engines of the time were so powerful and dominant that NASCAR’s founder, Bill France Sr., was forced to ban them from Grand National competition in 1965. Unfortunately, Petty Enterprises had already built a number of the engines, and the team was forced to abandon stock cars so they could run their engines on the drag strip. A year later, the engine was allowed to return with modifications.
Today’s 358-cubic-inch engines are carefully engineered and constructed to endure 500 or more miles of brutal racing. Over the years, a combination of old-fashioned experience and engineering know-how has allowed teams to boost the maximum rpm from around 7,000 to 12,000 without catastrophic failure. Today’s engine blocks and components are designed especially for racing, which helps minimize broken crankshafts, piston rods, and lifters.
Mechanics and Specialists
In the beginning, the NASCAR mechanic was often the same guy who drove the car to the track and then drove it in the race. But as the sport became more professional, owners began to form teams with one or a few dedicated mechanics, with the driver helping out wrenching as needed. Over time, the teams have grown and become far more structured. Today, Sprint Cup is more specialized than any other time in the sport’s history. The top teams have annual budgets in the tens of millions of dollars, with staff employed to concentrate on specific areas of the race car. Chassis builders, fabricators, tire specialists, electronics specialists, and general mechanics work in unison to make certain every part of the car is race ready.
Legendary mechanic Herb Nab at work on an engine at the Holman-Moody shops in the early 1960s. Back in the day, the championship-winning crew chief didn’t just work on the cars; he also participated in pit stops and any other tasks that were required of him.
Modern Sprint Cup team shops employ numerous highly skilled specialists. Here we see a team of painters at work on one of Jimmie Johnson’s No. 48 Chevrolets at the Hendrick Motorsports race shop. The gray paint is a primer coat that goes straight onto the bodywork. The car’s familiar dark blue and silver design will be added later.
Garages/Team Shops/Headquarters
An early NASCAR “race shop” usually consisted of a one-room wooden shed in the backyard behind the house. These were often no more than a 12-by-20-foot structure with a single light hanging from the rafters. The car was rolled out of the shed and worked