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Marlin Dodges the rain


The hot box, and the Pepsi 400 from Michigan International Speedway.





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A lot of words have circulated around the Internet having to do with the infamous "Telemetry Box" that caught fire and put Robbie Gordon out of the Watkins Glen race with the No. 31 Lowes Chevrolet. NASCAR and NBC were pretty quiet about it initially, but some reports slowly leaked out.

Jeff Gordon was quick to report the fire in the in-car camera box before this season's Daytona 500 began. Most of the teams removed the telemetry and in-car camera boxes from their cars during the week. I watched the Busch race Saturday, and there were a few in-car cameras, but TNT did not show any graphics that required signals from the telemetry box. Although, TNT was broadcasting the Cup Happy Hour after the Busch race, and it showed an in-car camera view from the No. 15 NAPA Chevrolet of Michael Waltrip whacking the wall.

NASCAR and its technology partners figured out that the cause of the fire was a lithium battery in the telemetry or Global Positioning System (GPS) box. They have initiated a replacement of the lithium batteries with common household alkaline batteries. The alkaline batteries will be three to four pounds heavier in the GPS boxes and five to eight pounds heavier in the in-car camera boxes. It is assumed that they will cause a weight problem for the teams in keeping with the NASCAR mandated weight of the cars, which includes the driver.

The sanctioning body has decided to make inclusion of all the boxes in the cars optional for a couple of weeks until the teams get their confidence built back up in the technology. I assume that by the middle of September their use will once again be mandatory.

I happen to be one fan who really likes the technology. I like to see the speeds and RPM's that the cars are pulling at different areas of the racetrack. I also have an idea of what caused the fire. It was reported that the telemetry box was positioned on the floor of the car opposite of the driver. Most of the cars have their exhaust pipes running under the driver's side, or left side of the car in order to create more weight on that side. This is beneficial as they are usually making a series of left-hand turns. Some of the cars have their exhaust coming out of both sides, which would cause a lot of heat on the floor of the car opposite of the driver. The heat produced from the right side exhaust pipes could have been a contributing factor helping to cause the fire. It stands to reason that the GPS boxes could be positioned elsewhere in the car away from the intense heat.
The copyright of the article Marlin Dodges the rain in NASCAR is owned by Thomas M. Sampson. Permission to republish Marlin Dodges the rain in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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