Okay, so I’ve been messing around with this idea about how many G’s NASCAR drivers deal with during a race. It’s pretty wild stuff, and I wanted to see if I could figure it out myself.
I started by digging around online to get a feel for what people were saying. Turns out, it’s a bit all over the place. Some folks say drivers experience up to 5 G’s, others say it’s more like 2-3 G’s in the turns and maybe 6 G’s when they really punch it on the straights. And get this, someone even mentioned that drivers might experience 1,000 to 2,000 G’s over the whole year! That’s insane.
Here’s what I did to try and get a clearer picture:
- First, I watched a bunch of NASCAR races, paying extra close attention to the turns. I figured that’s where the drivers would be feeling the most force.
- Then, I tried to find some data on the speeds they hit in those turns. Bristol Motor Speedway kept popping up, so I focused on that one. Apparently, they take those turns at around 110 mph.
- Next, I did some rough calculations. I’m no physicist, but I found this formula online that seemed to make sense: G-force = (speed^2) / (radius gravity). I just needed the radius of those turns.
- After hunting around, I found that the radius of the turns at Bristol is something like 70 to 74 feet. I plugged in the numbers, did a bit of hand-waving, and came up with something like 3.3 G’s. That sounds about right, given what I read earlier.
But then I started thinking, that’s just in the turns. What about the rest of the race? Those guys are going super fast on the straights, too. I couldn’t find a good way to calculate that, but I’m guessing it’s not nothing. And they do this for, like, 500 laps! That’s 266.5 miles of getting pushed and pulled around.
So, what’s the final verdict? Honestly, I’m still not 100% sure. It definitely depends on the track and the speed. But based on my little experiment, I’d say those drivers are dealing with some serious forces, probably averaging around 3 G’s in the turns, and maybe even more sometimes. It’s no wonder they’re so ripped. It takes some serious strength to handle that kind of pressure for hours on end.
This whole thing got me thinking, I should probably stick to my day job. But it was a fun little project, and I learned a lot. Maybe I’ll try to build a simulator next, see if I can handle those G’s myself! Or maybe not.
