Camber is the vertical tilt of a car’s wheel when put perpendicular to the ground. A wheel is said to have a positive camber when its top is tilted outward from the car and its bottom slopes in. If the top tilts inward and the bottom slopes out, it is said to have a negative camber. This brings us to understanding why and how camber matters in a NASCAR car.
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It is common for manufacturers to build street cars with a slightly positive camber. The purpose of this is to achieve optimum grip when driving on different surface types.
Finding grip has a lot to do with how much the surface of the tire is in contact with the ground. A slightly positive camber provides a better grip than a zero camber when driving in a straight line.
This changes when making turns, which is why street cars have a lesser grip on corners. But such a setup won’t cut it for race cars since they need to have a strong grip on the corners.
Experts recommend a steep negative camber for performance vehicles. In NASCAR, where cars make only left turns on oval tracks, the requirement changes further.
Stock cars use negative camber on the right wheels to aid with making left turns. For left wheels, they use positive camber since they will always stay on the outside of turns. This will provide them with enough grip and stability on the corners while maintaining a high speed. However, getting this balance right is easier said than done.
NASCAR tracks are seldom surfaces without a banking angle of their own, so the camber has to be adjusted accordingly. With heavily banked tracks, the camber doesn’t have to be excessive due to the already present steepness. But having so on other avenues will result in less acceleration and poor braking on straightaways.
Tracks like the Kansas Speedway and Homestead-Miami, which come with variable banking, make things further complicated. Kansas, for instance, has 17 degrees of banking in the lower lane and progresses to 20 degrees near the wall. Finding the right camber in such a case is quite the task.
Positive and negative cambers also affect the edges of tires and cause blowouts. But these difficulties are a necessary side-effect to maximize performance. At the end of the day, such technical demands are why crew chiefs and members are paid the high figures that they are in the world of motorsports.
