Monday, July 6, 2009

Body and Soul

As race fans, we all love the roar of the engines and the beauty of the slick bodies on a NASCAR Sprint Cup racing machine especially at the super speedway races like we just had at Daytona. I was able to pick the brains of the engine tuner for the Miller Lite Dodge and a couple of the fabricators who specialize on the super speedway cars in the Penske stable. Here is what I found out.

The Penske Powerhouse

Darin Russell, the primary engine tuner for the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge, attended an auto technical school to obtain his college degree and was originally hired by Robert Yates Racing where he cut his teeth for four years before being hired by Penske Racing. (Darin in the center of the picture "working it" in the garages at Sonoma...)

Darin is in his fourth year tuning the engines at the track which he loves because he says, “the engines are the heart of the race car and what racing is all about.” Darin can choose to tune the Miller Lite engine for more horsepower or for better fuel mileage depending on the track and the race. While at the track, Darin becomes an amateur weatherman as he monitors things like temperature, barometer and vapor pressure, all which affect how these finely tuned engines will run under racing conditions.

At the track, Darin is responsible for anything engine related and has to complete this checklist each day the Miller Lite Dodge goes out on the track.

The Penske Dodges have a 15/16th plate engine that produces “approximately” 400 HP and has special “Spintron” technology that runs the valve train system. Dodge supplies all the Dodge teams with the basic racing engine block and then each Dodge team tweaks the engines to their needs. The Dodge racing teams do not share that information with each other but they do share information with Dodge.

There are 60 employees at the Penske Racing Engine shop, which is actually located about 45 minutes from the main Penske Racing garage. Not only does this shop house about 100 engine blocks, with 30-40 engines fully built at anytime, it also is the main source for Penske engine parts. Penske used to outsource their parts but since competition has become so fierce in the NASCAR garages, this is yet another way they can assure other teams do not find out what parts they are using or how they are modifying them.

It takes about three days for the Penske team to build an engine from start to finish. Each engine has about 50 cycles put on it on the Penske shop dyno machine before its put in a Miller Lite race car. Once it is in the car the engine will go through about another 25 cycles on the chassis dyno before it hits the track. The engine parts all go through tremendous amounts of testing before they are assembled into the engine. (This is Dale Jr's engine from Talladega last year...Penske does a better job of covering their engines!)

The Miller Lite team tears down the engine after every race and surprisingly, this process only takes about a half an hour. In fact, the Brew Crew can change out an entire engine at the track in about the same amount of time if a Penske powerhouse unfortunately “blows.” These days if you lose an engine at the track, you usually don’t bother fixing it, instead you just swap it out to be safe and tear it down afterwards to analyze the malfunction. That also means they only use an engine once. However, the team might re-use certain engine parts like the heads, blocks, and cranks but they keep a close eye on the mileage to determine when to stop using them. Usually races will put about 800 miles on an engine per race weekend and the Miller Lite team has tested durability for some of its parts for up to 1100 miles.

The biggest difference with the “new” Penske engine being used full time by the three Penske teams is that is it lighter and now looks more like the Ford racing engines because the distributors are now up front. It also (of course) produces more horsepower and torque.

Fab-ulous

There are 28 fabricators at the Penske shop and instead of working on each Penske racing team, they are divided by type of race car. There are eight senior fabricators that focus on the super speedway cars and the rest work on the down force cars.

There are six surface plates the cars are built on and they estimate it takes about 10 days to build a car, up to 16 days to build a super speedway car. For most races, they have seven cars built total, two for each racing team and one is kept at the shop in case of dire emergency. For the Daytona 500, they build 10 cars total just because it is such an important race and there is so much time on the track. At any one time, the Penske fabricators have about 15 cars built per race team and they are always try to be at least one week ahead of the race schedule.

The Miller Lite Dodge and the rest of the Penske cars are fabricated out of 24 gauge sheet metal. Penske gets the main body parts like the nose and the rear deck lid from Dodge and those parts are stock “stamped” so NASCAR can see they came from the manufacturer. This season, all of the Dodge teams got a new nose and it seems to have helped them turn better through the corners.

It takes the fabricators two days alone to get the roof, deck lid and hood shaped just right especially on a super speedway car. However, the nose and front fenders are the most important part on the super speedway car. Another difference on the super speedway cars is that they use thicker windows and use lots of extra braces and brackets to hold the sheet metal in place because the draft is so violent it can literally skin the sheet metal right off the car.

The fabricators work 7:00AM to 4:00PM daily and in November and December they tend to work seven days a week preparing for Daytona. They said the worst part of their job is trying to get the cars to fit NASCAR’s templates as they have very little wiggle room to make adjustments on the COT but they keep trying to get an edge. Penske uses the wind tunnel at Dodge headquarters in Detroit but more recently has begun using a local wind tunnel in North Carolina because it saves them time and money to not have to travel for three days.

I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit more about the engine and body shops at Penske Racing. The next time you see that Blue Deuce, I hope you’ll appreciate more the time and effort it takes to make it rumble around the track.

24 comments:

  1. Wow! VERY fascinating read! Having spent some time in the Miller Lite pit (Thanks a million!) at Sonoma, I have a new and greater appreciation for all those guys in the pit and behind the scenes in the engine and fabrication shops. Thank you for giving us greater insight into the goings-on with the Brew Crew.

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  2. Great write klv. I always enjoy reading about the inner workings of the teams and the cars.

    Cant imagine what it takes to set up a body on the COT to pass inspection.

    The COT is supposed to save money ? Looks like these teams still have a bunch of cars ......

    Thank you for inviting me to your post and it is good to see friends here.

    Sincerely, Rick

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  3. Jon --It is pretty amazing to learn about the inner workings of the teams and garages. When you think about all the teams doing this it really is an impressive feat of technology, ingenuity and organization!

    Larry and the crew loved having you guys!

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  4. Hey Rick! Good you found us...let me know if you have any questions on how to "follow" the other bloggers and be sure to tell us your blog address!!

    It is MUCH easier to blog over here...

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  5. Great write up, Kris. This was perfect for me, very informative, yet not so technical as to be over my head.

    I can still see the 'jet fuel' dripping down the side of Jr's engine. Wonder why he couldn't win with that one? LOL

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  6. Yeah Gene I even noticed the kneuter valve missing on Jr.s engine. Better not let the NASCAR inspectors catch that.

    Good write up Klvalus. Do you think I could buy one to the slightly used Miller cars for a collectors item?

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  7. You are unlikely to get anything too technical from me Gene -- Things start to go over my head pretty quickly! LOL

    I *knew* you would have some snappy jab for Junior's suped up engine!

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  8. LOL Photo, I think Junior's already been "knuetered"...

    As far as the slightly used Miller car goes, I can ask! LOL If JJ keeps punting us into walls I can get you pieces parts for sure...

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  9. great info klv, nice to get real info on what the crew guys go through. Those guys are the real backbone of Nascar.

    I have moved over here as well. Pass the word to all our Nascar blogging friends. I need some followers. LOL

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  10. Hey Rob! Thanks. I really learn a TON from the crew guys, they are truly the backbone of the sport.

    Post your blogspot address on here...we will all find you!!

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  11. Kristen, I enjoyed the time with Larry and the guys! But my one big regret was not throwing JJ under the Bus for punting Kurt late in the race. If JJ pulls another bonehead move like that, HE'S GOING UNDER TWICE.

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  12. Hey all! Storkjrc has joined us...find him at http://storkjrc-thewayitis.blogspot.com/


    LOL Jon -- I think I missed the opportunity to throw JJ under da bus that week with all the hubbub at Foxsports! I will definitely be all over it if he does it again...but it did get me a nice little piece of the Miller Lite Dodge sheet metal...

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  13. Wow Kristen! I can tell you've been taking notes, and not just lug nuts! Great read, and it was interesting to note that the speedway cars are different than the downforce cars still. I remember one of the big selling points of the COT was "one car for all tracks". Yea, right!

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  14. Thanks again kl here is the address http://rlguido.blogspot.com/

    One thing I have noticed right off with this site is that it is more personalised and everybody is doing something different. Way Cool ...

    RL

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  15. Another great article Kristen. I can tell that you are learning a lot from getting to go behind the scenes.

    There is a book someone gave me called The Physics of NASCAR that I think you would really like. It's not technical enough to be "over your head", as Gene would say... lol.

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  16. Hey Cord -- Yeah, the COT definitely has different bodies for the different tracks but sheet metal is probably the cheapest thing on the car so it might still be saving them some pennies.

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  17. Hey RL - I got you linked up on my blog! I agree, the different styles are cool and reflect everyone's personality. And --what a concept -- you can find them!!!

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  18. Hey Gonger -- I will have to find that book, sounds like a good one. Thanks for the recommendation. I tend to get lost when the crew starts throwing around terms, then I have to go back and ask them to define things and it slowly comes together!

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  19. Here's my address;

    http://crracing54.blogspot.com/

    It's gonna take me some time to figure this place out!

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  20. Its *way* easier to figure out than Foxsports. Make sure you go to all of our blogs and "follow" us, then when you go to your "Dashboard" anytime we post a new blog it will show up there...

    We are also kicking around the idea of a joint blog on here too to make it easier to chat.

    Welcome to blogspot CR!!

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  21. Very interesting insight to the workings of the Penske engines and fabrication shops.

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  22. Hey Tsfan! Welcome to blogspot!! Good to see you over here...

    I just found your blog and have linked up!

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  23. Great blog! I enjoyed reading it. Now, I've got to shift into high gear and find everyone else. Take care.volfan

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  24. Hey Vol!! You made it over! Yea!!

    Links to everyone else can be found on the side of my blog. Just hit "follow" and you will be all connected up.

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Tell me what you think race fans!!