Testing at Daytona International Speedway Photo credit: David L. Yeazell / Speedwaymedia.com
So what does NASCAR and NASA have the same interest in?
It’s Runway 15 at the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
That’s right. Runway 15.
Runway 15 at NASA’s Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
Yes, the 2013 Gen-6 cars have proven that they can pretty much “fly” hitting a top speed of 199 mph at Daytona International Speedway. But it is not the actual “flying” part that’s involved, but rather, just more testing on Runway 15.
Teams have since discovered that Runaway 15 at NASA’s Shuttle Landing Facility is perfect for straight-line testing. Notable Research and development teams from Richard Childress Racing, Joe Gibbs Racing and Michael Waltrip Racing have discovered the NASA Shuttle Landing Facility just south of Daytona Beach in Brevard County, a great testing place to collect aerodynamic data. “We use the landing strip at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral just because it’s a long, smooth straightaway, and it’s warm, so in the wintertime you can test there with pretty controlled conditions,” Richard Childress Racing director of competition Dr. Eric Warren. It’s also more economically feasible than transporting cars from North Carolina to the proving grounds in Arizona. “You work out a relationship with those guys and pay for the use of the facilities like any other testing facility. They have their own on-site emergency crews, so the safety side of it is really nice. It’s closer (than Arizona).
The Shuttle Landing Facility’s Runway 15, or SLF, which opened in 1976, is one of the largest runways in the world. The runway is located 2 miles northwest of the Vehicle Assembly Building and is 15,000ft long and 300ft wide – about as wide as the length of a football field and is longer and wider than runways at most commercial airports. It has 1000ft of paved overruns at each end and the paving thickness is 16 inches at the center, and 15 inches thick on the sides. Although a single landing strip, it is considered two runways, depending on the approach: from either the northwest on Runway 15 or from the southeast on Runway 33. The landing strip is not perfectly flat; it has a slope of 24 inches (61 centimeters) from the center line to the edge to facilitate drainage.
Space shuttle Endeavour rolls down the Shuttle Landing Facility on Runway 15. Credit: NASA
The final space shuttle mission, STS-135, ended on July 21, 2011 after Endeavour rolled to a stop at its home port on Runway 15 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA’s space shuttle fleet began with its first launch on April 12, 1981 and continued through 30 years of missions.
Sources: FoxSports, Google, NASA
