Customer Reviews

Competition Car Aerodynamics: A Practical Handbook

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This book is very specific in its approach. It goes over the broad theory of aerodynamics as it applies to racing, and then explains each component of a contemporary race car, covering the front end (airdams, splitters and spoilers), the back end (wings), the underside (underbody aerodynamics), and other miscellaneous aero aids. In each chapter, he walks through a host of different tests to show not just which configurations are going to work best, but also why they are going to work best.

For drivers of open wheeled or production-based race cars, this is a great handbook to use in formulating your approach to the often misunderstood world of aero.

Jack Olsen and Joćo Carlos Matoso are both correct: this book has some excellent information aimed at the person who does not have any specialized knowledge of aerodynamics. I'm a track car driver and aeronautical engineer, and I found the book to be a little too simplified for my background. But I've recommended it to a lot of non-aerodynamicists as an introductory work, and they have all loved it.

If you are a racing fan who wants to understand the aero packages, or if you are a racer or track driver who wants to know which aero options will be appropriate for your needs, this is a great place to start educating yourself. Even if you are an airplane engineer (like me), this does give you some insight into the differences between car and airplane aerodynamics. But if you are looking for a technical discussion on boundary layer models and doing CFD gridding, this isn't the book you are looking for.

The book was well written in a very British style. It covers most aerodynamic devices on modern competition cars and gives a few examples focusing on a Nascar study and a Formula-1 BAR Honda study. I would have liked to have seen more original work from the author to specifically and graphically detail each component that goes into the aerodynamics of a competition car instead of just reproducing other studies. However, as an introduction to the field of aerodynamics of cars this book is easy to understand and fairly informative.

It is rather interesting especially for someone who is a beginner in the subject. Not so much for those who already bear some competency in the area.
These will have learnt aerodynamics applied to airplanes and I was especially interested in learning all the "twicks" of underbody / tunnel air routing but I was somehow deceived.

Joćo Carlos Matoso,
Mechanical Engineer (59)

First a comment about quality unrelated to the writers presentation: I have a great many books and take rigorous care of them. That said the quality of the binding of this book was extremely poor, the binding falling apart by the time I reached page 65, leaving the pages loose from the spine. Unfortunately, this occured just a couple of days after Amazons return policy expired, so beware.
I'm a professional hydrologist and as such work with water flow in my job. Therefore; when I became interested in aerodynamics of vehicles I bought several books, thinking that the applications between water and air might be similar. Well, they are similar, but NOT the same.
This is a terrific introductory book on this subject and is written in a style that makes for excellent understanding and causes the reader to think rather than simply absorb information. I'd recommend this book highly for those who are interested in vehicle aerodynamics and have at least a reasonable grasp of mathematics. You don't need advanced calculus but some algebra is helpful in understanding.
I was extremely pleased with this book as a stepping-stone to more advanced publications. If you're already a professional aerodynamicist then you probably will skip over this one but if you're simply interested in what all those fins and other gizmos on modern racing cars are and how they work, this is the book for you.

Bob

If you just want a general overview of most aspects of car aero then its fine but the subtitle, A Practical Handbook, is misleading. There is a lot of coverage of certain topics but my particular interest, to design a front spoiler with undertray for my sports car, is neglected. Yes there is some info on that topic but nearly all of it relates to simulations while there is virtually nothing on the real world practical application of those simulation results or on the various designs that have been used on real cars. In contrast there is a lot of such information on rear wings. Finally, as someone else mentioned, its written in that British style which tends towards verbosity at the expense of clarity, I prefer the more direct American style of writing for technical subjects. PS I am not American.