Auto Racing Jargon

What is the 'draft' in auto racing?

The draft in racing is that actually, when you're racing, you're much better off following someone if they're the same speed rather than pulling out and going down the track in a different lane than they are. The first car's punching the hole in the headwind, and the second one doesn't have to do that, so that the air is actually coming over the first car. Therefore, the second car in line has a chance to pull into first.

What is an 'apron' in auto racing?

The 'apron' is usually on the inside of the track. It might be out of concrete where the track surface is asphalt and then for the banked turns, the 'apron' would be the flat area on the inside of the turns. It's usually pretty obvious going into the pit lanes because you have to go down off the banking onto the 'apron' and then into the pit lane. Normally it's not a racing surface. In fact, I think at Dayton and some other super speedways, there's a yellow line between the 'apron' and the turns or the track, and if you go below that yellow line onto the 'apron' you could be penalized because otherwise you're just trying to pass competition inside, which is not really racing.

What is the 'backstretch' in auto racing?

There is normally a front stretch and a backstretch. A front straight away and a back straight away. The front straight away is where they start finish lines. OK, where you start the race and you finish the race. The backstretch, or the back straight away is on the far side, usually of an oval.

What is 'banking' in auto racing?

Banking allows the cars to go around the corners faster. It's also interesting, when you get on a high speed banking, of how much the car is sucked into the banking. Think about it. Because in other words, instead of having a centrifical force, it pushes you sideways. You still have some centrifugal force, but you have a lot of down-force, that pushes you on the track. If you look at the car going around the turn, you see it going a lot like that. Well, you're getting a lot of down-force. And they have very stiff springs, because it gets very, very bumpy if those bankings are a little bit bumpy. You're trying to keep the car from bottoming out.

What is the 'camber' of a tire in auto racing?

Camber is part of your suspension adjustment, mainly in the front, but in four-wheel independent suspension cars you can adjust the camber in the rear. For the most part, the camber in the front tires of a streetcar is what we call "positive camber", where the bottom of the tires is cambered in a little bit more than the top of the tires, and that creates a little bit more stability. My hands show a lot a lot of camber but in reality it may just be a half a degree or a degree, very, very slight, almost not visible to the naked eye. But in a race car, negative camber is fairly important, and you're going to visually see that. It could be a degree and a half, up to six degrees in some cars, not NASCAR cars but in other types of road racing cars. If you look at the front of the car, you're going to see the tires looking like that. But think about it, you're going around a corner, the car leans this way, now more of the tire footprint is going to be on the track surface. So it gives you better handling in the corner. But a lot of negative camber on the front actually reduces your ability to slow the car down a little bit, because brakes stop wheels, tires stop cars. You've got to keep the tyre on the ground, and if you have a lot of negative camber, you don't have as much rubber on the ground, so it does affect your ability to brake.

What are 'donuts' in auto racing?

There's two types of 'donuts'. First, the 'donuts' you might see on the side of the car, they're black, round tire marks and that's when one car runs up against another side of the car and their tires are turning so this leaves a mark on the side of the car. Another type of 'donut' is at the end of a race the winner might do 'donuts' in front of the start/finish line for all the spectators to watch and he is just going around in 'donuts' or very tight circles and they do that by spinning the rear tires and they're basically spinning so much, you see so much tire smoke as anything and they just spin around in 'donuts' and it looks great on TV.

What are 'scuffs' in auto racing?

Scuffs usually refer to tires. Sometimes, tires may work a little bit better if you just get a lap on them. and just get that outside layer of whatever the tires are made of; rubber and other compounds scuff. It is best to get that little bit off, and the tires could then have more traction initially for when you start racing on them. So some drivers may like to scuff in a couple of tires so they are not brand new. You also hear the term sticker tires. You can see those as they leave the pit lane. They still have the white stickers on them, and that means they have not scuffed them in and they are using them brand new. A lot of tires will work very well brand new.

What is a 'short track' in auto racing?

A short track is usually an oval that is less than a mile or half a mile. It's usually a very short oval track.

What is a 'superspeedway' in auto racing?

A superspeedway is like Talladega, Daytona, California Speedway. They're usually like 2 miles long to 2 and a half miles long.