hen you watch professional drivers such as Jeff Gordon and Michael Andretti calmly steer race cars around a track at more than 200 mph — their wheels barely inches from a concrete wall — you have to think: These guys have nerves of steel, ice in their veins instead of blood. Or, maybe they just have an incredible grasp of the laws of physics, even if they never studied the subject. That is not as far-fetched as it sounds after you read the Physics of Racing Series, a 12-part dissertation written by Brian Beckman, a software architect and self-described "card-carrying physicist" who turned to science to solve his own problems of making a car go fast in autocross events.

In autocross, drivers zip one at a time around tight, twisting courses that reward precise car control and smoothness more than horsepower and a heavy throttle foot. "I was a terrible driver until I started figuring out what I was doing wrong by figuring out the physics," the 41-year-old Beckman recalls. "I got to be a competitive driver by doing the analysis and correcting the mistakes revealed by the analysis." When Beckman says "analysis," he's not kidding. He used 30 mathematical formulas alone to help calculate the fastest line through a 90-degree right-hand turn, for example. But after it was apparent that Newton's laws were helping him win autocross events in southern California, he shared his findings in 1991 with fellow members of the No Bucks Racing Club in the organization's newsletter.

Formulas for Success
When Beckman moved from California to the Seattle area in 1992, he learned about the rec.autos.sport.autocross (later Team.Net) online newsgroup and, in the original spirit of the Internet, donated his articles to cyberspace. Today his articles are widely available online, despite the fact that Beckman has never published his own work. Instead, the most visible incarnation of the Physics of Racing is hosted by auto enthusiast Robert Keller of Redwood City, Calif., who, Beckman says, "was kind enough to post [my articles] on his Web site" — the two have never met. He says he "copy-lefted" his work so others, like Keller, could freely use it if they didn't change the content or attribution or try to collect a royalty. "I wrote [the articles] basically to teach myself how to drive better by figuring out the game from first principles. I got lots of encouragement from readers both in my club and on the Internet, so I kept it up," he says.

Much of Beckman's work is weighty stuff for those who think fast driving is all about white-knuckle, tire-screeching bravado. However, there is useful information that would-be Jeff Gordons and even people using computer-racing simulations will lap up. Think you know what your tires are trying to tell you? In "Keeping Your Tires Stuck to the Ground," Beckman notes: "Generally, tires 'squeak' when they are nearing the limit [of adhesion], 'squeal' at the limit and 'squall' over the limit."

Physics for the People
Beckman says the technical nature of physics shouldn't scare away those who view racing as a seat-of-the-pants sport. "I have always believed that physics is easy if explained properly and that the public tends to be frightened of it because it's typically not explained properly. So I targeted my articles to the layman, asking only that he or she be comfortable with high-school math." Apparently, many racing enthusiasts agree that physics can help drivers lower their lap times. Car clubs for the BMW, Chevrolet, Ferrari, Jaguar and Porsche marques are among the dozens that have reprinted his work in their newsletters, and it has been published in countries as far away as Macao and Australia. It has even appeared in a newsletter for radio-controlled race cars.

Despite relying on physics to improve his driving, even Beckman concedes that "the driver's seat is not the place nor the time to think of such things." Instead, "feel and intuition" should lead you to the fast way around a track, helped, of course, "by strong technical knowledge." Beckman will continue to share his wisdom via an as-yet-unfinished 13th installment that is in the works. There are also several more articles "in various stages of completion," including one that uses a computer program to find the optimal path around a race course using Newton's laws. Stay tuned for more developments.

Reported by Rick Popely for cars.com

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