What does Isaac Newton have to do with NASCAR?

Ross Chastain’s wall-ride baffled NASCAR fans. Even he didn’t fully understand it. How did it work?

Just ask Dr. Diandra Leslie-Pelecky. This former physics professor now writes about motorsports. She says Mr. Chastain’s trick worked due to centripetal force.

Scientist Isaac Newton discovered centripetal force in the late 1600s. “Centripetal” comes from Latin. “Centrum” means center. “Peto” means to seek. Put it together, and you have “center-seeking.”

Picture a ball on a string. Imagine spinning it around in circles. What makes it spin? It’s you, tugging on the string. That tug is centripetal force.

When objects move in circles, centripetal force pulls them toward the center. If it didn’t, the object would fly off in one direction. (Imagine letting go of the string while swinging the ball!) Centripetal force is at work whenever an object turns along a curve.

But wait—race cars don’t have strings! Where does this “centripetal force” come from on a racetrack? What pulls a car toward the center to make it turn?

According to Dr. Leslie-Pelecky, it’s the tires. She says it takes four tons of force to turn a race car going 80 miles per hour. That’s a lot of force.

Drivers often lose speed when making turns. But by riding the wall, Mr. Chastain took the pressure off his tires. He could make the turns while keeping up speed.

The result was a mind-blowing speed spectacle.

But it’s a risky move. To pull it off, Mr. Chastain scraped his car. His body took on more pressure than an astronaut launching into space. He could have lost control and crashed.

All NASCAR racers play with powerful physics. But it takes wisdom to know when too far is too far.