Stock cars? They don't look like the ones on the street I see

Every year, folks in the Official NASCAR Members Club get access the general public doesn't, like to the Research and Development Center. You probably didn't even know such a place existed.

On the floor this year, in the only room you are allowed to take pictures, the R&D staff set up a side by side comparison of street cars and their NASCAR counterparts.

There's a pretty big difference on the outside for the trucks, the Toyota Tundra and Ford F-150. The Ford Fusion, with the exception of the splitter, is close. Well, until you get under the hood and on the track.

At R&D you also get to see where every chassis is brought before the season begins, to be inspected in a zillion different ways, well something like 40 or 50 points. Then they get micro chipped in 10 spots. At the tracks, they get scanned to record the history of the car.

And if it outlives its usefulness to a Cup team and gets sold to a Nationwide team, you guessed, the chip tells the tale.


This is also the place were the 1st place and a random car get inspected after a race. And, yes, there is a room full of confiscated parts. You can look through the chain link, but you can't get close.

What do horse racing and NASCAR have in common? Even weights. Yep, the cars have to be the same weight. So, there are grooves in the door panels with titanium weights to even the loads. Tom Gideon of the R&D Center explained that to us.

That means, a driver like Mark Martin has some serious weight added, and another like (although slimmed down) Tony Stewart won't. I'm sure there are ways crew chiefs can fudge with them, but I try to believe the best in all people.

And on the subject of safety, over at Earnhardt Ganassi, we got a detailed tour and Q&A session. There, Brad Zimmerman a cross between a racer and engineer ( what a perfect combo!) took us on the shop floor. As at the R&D Center, photos were pretty restricted.

A fascinating conversation was the differences between open wheel and stock cars. And this being Chip Ganassi's place, is a pretty good spot for this talk.

There are the obvious differences, but one thing the group curious about was what happens when they wreck.

Brad said both are tremendously safe in an on-track wreck, even though they may not look that way.

The stock car is built with cages, foam and the like, designed to protect the driver and absorb the impact, the G-forces, if you will.

The open wheel car, the Indy series car, is safer than you think, with it's open cockpit. They are designed to break apart, disintegrate on impact and take the force of the crash away from the driver.

An Indy car wreck looks like a disaster. Just think the final lap of the Indy 500 this year. But the driver is in a safe spot, the car "blowing up" to the eye, but taking the wreck away from the driver.

I love going to these places and getting a little insight.