

A racing test tunnel no one wants to talk about - daniel02216
http://kinja.roadandtrack.com/the-secret-racing-test-tunnel-no-one-wants-to-talk-abou-1678596274

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whoopdedo
The author is overly self-congratulatory I think. An article three years ago
(Even though the byline date is more recent. A database update that didn't
preserve timestamps? Or sneaky SEO to make it appear more relevant?) says much
the same thing with more details about how the testing is done.
[http://www.racecar-engineering.com/articles/nascar/the-
secre...](http://www.racecar-engineering.com/articles/nascar/the-secrets-of-
laurel-hill/)

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mwg66
The article was put online in 2014 but had previously appeared in print.

Indeed, this article offers nothing new about the tunnel.

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ericcumbee
It's called a run down test. You accelerate to a certain speed, and then coast
and the way the car slows down is where you get the data from.

It's not a new idea. Teams including Audi's Le Mans squad use it. Teams have
rented the Shuttle landing facility at Cape Canaveral to do the same thing.
The advantage of the Tunnel is there are less variables to contend with such
as things like wind.

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Gracana
That's not the only thing they were doing. The article also mentions braking
tests, and pulling all kinds of telemetry. These things aren't new, but being
able to do all these tests and measurements on a full-sized car in a
controlled environment is rather unique.

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Neitanod
tl;dr anyone?

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Jgrubb
Old abandoned tunnels are cool. Racing dude bought one in PA to test his cars
in a controlled environment since scale models in a test tunnel don't behave
the same way as real cars driving fast. Was a big open secret, apparently
recently banned by NASCAR and Indy for no good reason. Also, tunnels are cool.

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gpvos
Also, the author doesn't actually get to see the inside of the tunnel despite
building up a lot of expectation in the article.

