NASCAR: The Army's Unlikely Adviser

By DOUGLAS WALLER

Now that every branch of the U.S. military sponsors a stock-car team, the armed services are looking to NASCAR for more than just a recruiting vehicle. Some of the techniques and equipment perfected on the tracks could easily benefit the Pentagon's trucks and aircraft. For starters, Carlson Technology, which advises teams on how to shave seconds off pit stops, and Roush Industries, which manages nine teams--including one sponsored by the Army National Guard--have shown the Army's National Automotive Center, near Detroit, how to reduce significantly the time it takes to change out the engine on a humvee. The Army could also use transponders similar to the ones NASCAR installs in cars to track their positions in a race, so military commanders can monitor all their vehicles on the battlefield. And amid an Army investigation into a recent spate of rollovers in Iraq that may have been caused by tacked-on, top-heavy armor, the service hopes to build on NASCAR engineering to reduce rollovers for the next generation of vehicles that will replace the 20-year-old humvee.

One piece of NASCAR ingenuity already deployed in Iraq: the layers of clear plastic sheets on the front of race-car windshields, which crews can quickly tear off each time oil or grit obstructs the driver's view. Similar Mylar sheets are now used on Black Hawk helicopters, whose windshields in the past had to be routinely replaced after getting pitted by desert sand. A set of layered sheets, which costs $1,100, is a lot cheaper than the $15,000 windshields. Could an invasion of flashy logos be far behind?