Finally: NASCAR Engineer Performs Lightning McQueen Aero Analysis

RFK Racing, a storied outfit you might recognize as Brad Keselowski‘s NASCAR team, decided to run an aerodynamic analysis of Lightning McQueen from Cars. Now you can watch Seth Dillard, an Aerodynamics/CFD Engineer at RFK, break down Lightning’s aero viability.

“CFD” stands for Computational Fluid Dynamics, which can refer to the study of any liquid or gas in motion. But in this context, it’s an aero simulation, examining the movement of air across McQueen’s body. With powerful computer processors, a technician can understand how aerodynamic a car will be at different speeds and in different conditions using math.

Dillard refers to McQueen’s mouth as a point of “stagnation,” which means air doesn’t move there. But if McQueen were real, he’d be breathing through there (I don’t think he has a nose?) so maybe opening his mouth actually creates an aero benefit.

I’m not sure what exactly inspired this—maybe somebody at Disney just leaked Lightning’s specs? But safe to say, this has to be the first car Dillard’s analyzed that has different aerodynamic properties depending on its facial expression.

And spoiler alert: McQueen might not be the sleekest machine in the Cars universe!

Here’s the video:

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