Optimal Solution Magazine 09
HUNTERSVILLE, NC - “Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) started in 1992,” says Mark Bringle, technical sponsorship and marketing director, “and we signed
the Doosan deal around 1998 . . .”
“The first year JGR didn’t win anything (in fact, they pretty much tore up everything)” continues Bringle “and were over budget. The Gibbs organization began to question whether they should even be in racing.
“In its second year, JGR won the Daytona 500 with driver Dale Jarrett, and they’ve been winning ever since.”
The Muscle
The JGR team today boasts 53 engineers and has 22 Doosan CNC machine tools: four horizontal machining
centers, and a machining center. 11 five-axis vertical
machining centers, five turning centers, a nine-axis mill/turn multitasking machine
vertical All 22 Doosan machines run two shifts a day.
Brian Levy, design engineer, “We manufacture more than 2000 different parts (150,000 total parts/ per year), which makes up 90% of a finished race car. We simply wouldn’t be where we are today without the Doosan equipment,” he says. “We don’t have to rely on anyone else, no outsourcing, no waiting on someone to deliver a part. Our advantage is that we make everything here. We build from the ground up. When we have an idea we will just go ahead with it.
“With NASCAR’s rules evolving not only every year but often several times within a year, this presents us with a challenge to stay on top of the current rules and be competitive with other teams. The Doosans are
sponsorship
a huge resource that we have at our disposal. Every time we get a new machine in-house that has a new capability, whether it’s being able to machine more complex geometries or use different types of tooling, we are all over it right away.
“With these machines, especially the Doosan VC 630/5AX and Puma MX2600ST,” says Levy, “there is no limit to the geometry that we can do. When our race teams come back from the track and suggest they’d like to try a new spindle geometry or
this part which is a little bit different
spend weeks and months working with the complex geometries of these two mating parts. And this is different from track to track, driver to driver, and even though the tracks are all basically an oval, they’re all different — some are longer, some are shorter, and the speeds are different. Some tracks have more banking, some have more bumps, thus the load that each wheel sees changes from track to track, and maybe from corner to corner within the same track. Getting the
relationship between the spring and spring perch just
right allows the
The JGR team today boasts 53 engineers and has 22 Doosan CNC machine tools.
than what we’re running right now, we can draw it up in 3D, download it to the machines and have that new part on our desk in two days or less. Being able to turn design concepts or new ideas around in such a short time is really a tremendous advantage that has gained better results on race day.”
About Racecar Suspensions Levy explains that the front and rear springs on these cars are not flat on the bottom; it’s a coiled spring and when the spring is terminated, the end of the tang is kind of hanging in space. So with their Doosan VC 630/5AX, which is a dedicated full five-axis vertical machining center capable of simultaneously machining all five surfaces of the part, they manufacture a helical spring perch that is basically the mating part that the spring sits on.
As the suspension travels, the interaction of these two parts has a great impact on the spring rate of the whole suspension system and a tremendous effect on the behavior of the car. The race engineers will
race engineers to finely adjust how the suspension moves and how the load is distributed on all four corners of the car.
An Ingenious Change To The Drag Link
Levy adds that the new technology that’s come into the shop has changed the design of some of the parts. “For example,” he says, “the drag link — which is part of the steering
system. The drag
link
connects the power steering box to the spindles. Where before it was made out of three separate pieces that were welded together, now because of the new Puma MX2600ST mill/turn
multi-tasking
machine we are able to hold it between centers and machine all the way around.
The Puma MX2600ST is a nine- axis vertical machining center and horizontal turning center in one. The B-axis spindle can articulate 120° in either direction and has a 40-tool automatic tool changer. The Puma MX2600ST also features a lower turret (BMT type) adding
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