News

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series

News Story

SUPPORT, COMMUNICATION KEEPS TOYOTA TEAMS ON THE FAST TRACK

When it comes to racing, it’s a fact of life that the spotlight shines brightest on the stars behind the wheel of the multi-colored racecars. But as every driver appreciates each time they climb aboard, behind them is a small army of engineers, technicians and mechanics striving to make the fastest, safest, most reliable car that they can.

For the drivers who race Toyota Camrys in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, it’s not just their own teams making the magic happen, but also a group of highly-skilled and dedicated engineers from Toyota and Toyota Racing Development, U.S.A.

At the track, those engineers provide technical support and invaluable information to the likes of Red Bull Racing, Michael Waltrip Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing and ensure that strong communication channels and the sharing of appropriate knowledge and experience makes every Toyota team stronger.

Former Sprint Cup crew chief Andy Graves (pictured), TRD’s Vice President of Chassis Engineering, leads the road crew that follows the race teams to each event, and their support is an important element in making the Camrys competitive, whatever the track.

Graves’ at-track group consists of engineers expert in the black art of chassis tuning, as well as in the pursuit of engine power and reliability.

“On the chassis support side, we bring two engineers in addition to me, and on the engine side we’ve got an engine tuner on each car and three additional engineers working on the engines inside,” Graves says. “That’s the core of our at-track group.”

The engineering team doesn’t come to the track armed just with software and brainpower; they come prepared for anything, Graves says. Which means bringing plenty of hardware, too.

“We bring spare engines, fully assembled, and we also bring every part it would take to assemble an engine separately,” he explains. “That’s for replacing an item on an engine that’s already installed in the car. We bring all the tools it would take to assemble or disassemble an engine, and a lot of diagnostic equipment as well. We use that if we feel like we have a big enough issue that we need to inspect the engine and determine whether we need to pull it out or not.”

But just knowing the nuts and bolts is not enough. You have to be able to communicate what you know, and that’s where the engineers come in.

“On the chassis side and on the engine side, we walk from team to team in the garage area and we try to pool the information from each of them,” says Graves. “Several of our teams don’t actually share information, so we kind of go around and determine the plusses and minuses of all the information for all our teams and share that with them.

“We try to figure out if it’s an isolated issue, or if it’s more widespread among all of our teams. We do a lot of floating among all of our teams.”

Graves and his group of engineers do share lots of information, but it’s packaged so that all teams can benefit without giving up team secrets.

“We do a lot of analysis and simulation work that can be shared among all of our organizations,” he says. “Sometimes it’s more generic, and it might not be using a specific team’s setup – we have several shared setups – and we have a list of documents and reports we produce for every single week which we distribute to all of our teams.”

It can get pretty specific.

“During the weekend, we record every single lap of practice and we print off the page so the drivers can see every single lap they ran and every single lap their competitors ran,” Graves says. “That way the drivers can see how good a shape – or how bad a shape – they’re in, every single lap at that point in time. We also share some tire info and air pressures. It’s not open-book from one team to the next, but there’s enough information that TRD collects that can help all our teams.”

Not all the Toyota teams use the TRD-built engines. Joe Gibbs Racing, for example, has its own successful in-house engine program led by Mark Cronquist, and there’s some horse trading back and forth among the teams that use TRD engines and those who don’t.

“We work very closely with Joe Gibbs Racing and when they have issues, they let us know,” Graves says. “When we have issues, we let them know, so everybody has a heads-up. That doesn’t mean that the engine package in the JGR cars is the same as those in the Red Bull cars or the Michael Waltrip Racing cars. TRD builds all the engines in both the Red Bull cars and the Michael Waltrip Racing cars, but it’s usually very similar, down the same path.

“There are differences in the fuel mileage and tune-up requirements where we go back and forth with Joe Gibbs Racing.”

While everything usually goes off without a hitch, there are times in the heat of competition when a particular bug will bite the Toyota teams as a whole. It’s then that Graves and his engineers leap into action across the spectrum of the company’s teams. Again, it’s all about communication.

“It usually happens if we have an issue, we’ll put out a report or bulletin, but we also like to go around and verbally tell each team. If it’s something of particular significance, they want first-hand information.”

With a team background, Graves, is particularly well-suited to attend to the touchy issues between naturally competitive teams, even if they are all on the same side, so to speak.

“I come from the team side, and understanding what’s in the minds of the crew chiefs and drivers,” he says. “We try to pick the best parts and pieces to make a nice, solid program, supporting the teams and trying to keep them stocked with technical decisions and data to make the best decisions.”

This week, the teams will head from an unusually chilly Daytona Beach to 70-degree Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., which is just down the road from Toyota’s U.S. headquarters in Torrance and TRD U.S.A.’s home office in Costa Mesa. Like any “home” game, Graves is ready for the challenge.

“There’s a lot of pride and we always have customers and TRD associates that attend the race,” he says. “We always want to run in front in our back yard.”

His biggest challenge during the weekend? It’s not technical difficulties or bad luck; it’s reading the future.

“It’s just watching how the weekend is unfolding and trying to share any insight that we may have and predictions on how the weekend is going to go,” Graves explains. “Track conditions change regarding the weather and the forecast. If the weather is changing and it washes out practice, then we need to have more race runs, and so on.

“We do much better when we’re actually solving equations and crunching numbers,” he smiles. “When you get into trying to predict how things are going to go during the weekend, it sometimes gets a little dicey.”

But rest assured, whatever the challenges Mother Nature and the incredible competitiveness of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series might present, Graves and his group of engineers will be working hard behind the scenes, crunching numbers, fixing what needs to be fixed and giving the teams all the information they need to win the battle at hand.

Average Rating:

Rate This:

1 2 3 4 5