How NASCAR drivers keep their cool in 140-degree cockpits
It started as a bit of a mystery: how did the cooling shirt end up in NASCAR?
Some drivers didn’t know. Others assumed it had to be Hendrick Motorsports — or, more specifically, Jimmie Johnson, who always seemed to be on the cutting edge of fitness and nutrition.
“I was the first driver to wear one,” Johnson said, “but the guy who started it was Chad Knaus.”
According to Johnson, his crew chief always had an eye on new technology as well as a holistic approach to performance, and that included Johnson. The seven-time Cup Series champion also dealt with cramping and was susceptible to heat issues, so Knaus got his hands on a cooling shirt and decided to test its effectiveness.
“When we used to paint the cars, one of the bays would be to roll the car in and they would make it 100 degrees in there to hurry up and cure the paint,” Johnson said. “[Knaus] literally had one of our guys go in there with this damn shirt on, plug it in the wall and sit in there and test it by pretending he was in a race car. I’ll never forget Chad calling me, ‘You won’t believe it, this cool shirt thing works! I’ve got so-and-so in the spray bake booth, and I’m cooking him in there, and he’s got the shirt on, and it feels great!'”
Johnson began wearing the shirt around 2018 or 2019. At first, only his teammates knew. He didn’t want his competitors to know because it was an advantage behind the wheel. Over time, it became public knowledge and a monkey-see-monkey-do of drivers following Johnson’s lead.
Joey Logano breaks into his signature smile and big laugh.
“It’s like jumping in a pool on a hot summer day,” the reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion said. “It feels great. It’s awesome.”
The simplest way to describe it is a shirt with cooling technology. The shirt houses tubes through which cold fluids run. It has revolutionized driver comfort.
“I think back years ago when we did ice packs in our suits and threw them out between stops,” Erik Jones said. “The endurance side, on a hot day, it’s just a game changer. There were days when you’d get out of those hot races and you were done and wiped out, even as much as you trained or didn’t train. So, this has changed it to where if it’s a 90-degree day, I don’t think anyone is worried about the heat in the car anymore.”
The process of driver comfort has evolved through the years. Ice packs, fans and the helmet hose, which is still used to blow cool air on the driver’s head, were some of the ways drivers tried to keep their temperatures down. The helmet hose doesn’t have the same impact as the cooling shirt considering the latter’s surface, though. Today, it’s hard to find a driver in the field who isn’t wearing one.
Jones was not alone in using “game changer” when talking about the cooling shirt. Michael McDowell, one such driver, correlated the uptick in drivers using the shirts to the introduction of the Next Gen car in 2022. Cup Series teams quickly realized through the testing phase how much hotter the cars were, making the shirts much more appealing.
“[The shirts] were around, but they would fail often, or they wouldn’t be that cold,” McDowell said. “You would be worried to run them because you didn’t know if it would be a good or a bad day for it, but now, I know there are still some troubles every now and then, but phew, it’s unbelievable how much that helps keep your core cool, your vital organs cool, and just lowering your heart rate from taking some of that heat out is a big deal.”
Shane van Gisbergen even freezes his shirt beforehand to make it even colder. So important is the ritual that his PR representative has a standing reminder to “put cool shirt in freezer an hour and a half before the drivers’ meeting” in her personal calendar.
Some drivers don’t wear the shirt every weekend, making the decision based on the weather. Ross Chastain is one, saying that there are times when he wants to sweat.
“Martinsville, I had to use the bathroom because I wasn’t sweating enough,” he said.
When in the car, the shirt (or vest, depending on choice) under the firesuit connects to a pump. The pump can be mounted anywhere, as Cesar Villanueva, the interior specialist for Kyle Larson at Hendrick Motorsports, explained.
The pump cycles through water and a mixture of antibacterial and antifungal fluid. It helps keep the system clean, and if the fluid isn’t cycled, it can clog. Naturally, if it clogs, the pump won’t run. However, there is more than one reason that a system might fail a driver during the race.
“You’re just trapped in a bad situation,” Austin Dillon said about the system failing. “There is nothing you can really do about it but shut it off, and you can dump the water out if you have to, but it’s kind of like a lifeline. It’s pretty important to have.”
A failure means a driver begins to boil. The fluids become hot, and there is no escape if the water can’t be dumped.
“It’s great until it’s not,” Logano said. “But more times than not, it’s great. Honestly, they’ve done a good job developing that whole system. It used to be really heavy, which is why no one used it, and now you have a process where it’s pretty efficient to run, and if it can mentally help you at the end of a race because you’re physically fresher, you do it.
“I don’t care how good of shape you’re in, you’re going to be fatigued after 400 or 500 miles. If you can keep yourself a little fresher, it’s probably worth it.”
Of course, the weight is a big deal. Sure, driver comfort is paramount, but so is car performance, and weight costs precious lap time. Because of its impact, it has been necessary to accept using the unit, which Villanueva said could be about 6½ to 7 pounds.
“I think we’ve accepted some of the weight penalty in wearing it,” Chris Buescher said, “because you have to make sure you’re as fresh as possible to fight at the end of these races.”
Tyler Reddick began using one in 2021 after he lost weight. He noticed that he suddenly needed something to keep his core temperature better regulated because it was getting very hot very quickly, without, as he says, the insulation.
Reddick’s praise, though, is the perfect way to sum up the cooling shirt in NASCAR.
“A lot of drivers use it,” he said. “I think what it does for cooling the body is probably the most efficient thing that we have.”
Source: espn.com