Penske Builds Newest NASCAR Winners with PTC Creo

Every 10 to 20 years or so, NASCAR calls for dramatic improvements to its race cars. Just six years ago, for example, the Generation 5 body came out. Promising to be much safer than its predecessors, the twenty-first century car became known as the Car of Tomorrow.

Unfortunately, fans weren’t impressed. They complained that the new NASCAR, which is supposed to be a stock car, didn’t look like anything you’d see on the street.

Generation 5

So, the car of tomorrow became the car of yesterday as NASCAR announced a new body style for its 2013 season.

Generation 6 would focus on manufacturer identity. That is, it would look like its production car inspiration, whether that’s Chevy, Ford, or Toyota. Plus, it would be lighter weight. Race fans were going to love the look and the faster track times. Engineers? Well, they were just going to have to brace themselves for a major makeover years earlier than anyone expected.

Generation 6

At Penske Racing, based in Mooresville, NC, engineers had already begun work on their 2013 model, updating components for the Dodge body they’d been using for the previous season. They’d been through revisions like this before, and they knew what they needed to do.

But then, a dramatic decision came from Penske management: The 2013 models had to be built off a Ford body.

“We had to scrap our work and start over,” says Drew Kessler, engineer responsible for the design group at Penske Racing. “A lot of parts and components go into making a race car from the ground up, so this was a big change and the timeline was short.”

The last time Penske had a complete body change like this, it took two years to get a car on the track. Now, the team had less than a year to build a winning model. Kessler says the only way to succeed was with a new engineering approach.

Luckily, Penske had PTC Creo and was poised to try an engineering-driven design approach on the Generation 6 car. Engineers would now create and test components digitally, and then fabricate and physically test in the wind tunnel or even on the track.

Kessler says that instead of going to the wind tunnel “with 80 options that we don’t know how they’ll perform, we bring 80 options that we have some digital information about.” That means that each test was more likely to be successful.

That also means that Penske Racing can make decisions quicker and get better performance for its development dollar.

Using the PTC Creo Advanced Assembly Extension (a must for any team working concurrently on a large assembly like an automobile) and PTC Windchill, Penske Racing’s designers collaborated smoothly on their work, whether they were integrating parts from outside vendors, updating existing parts, creating new parts, or keeping track of their newest assemblies.

The results have been impressive. The Generation 6 Team Penske Ford Fusion Sprint Cup cars were conceptualized, built, tested, and started racing in just 8 months – one third the time it took five years ago. But more importantly, Penske cars are winning.

For example, the Team Penske Fords have won five races in Sprint Cup competition so far in 2014, three with Brad Keselowski’s #2 Ford Fusion, and two with Joey Logano’s #22 Ford Fusion. The team has also won three Nationwide Series races with Brad Keselowski in the #22 Ford Mustang.

Brad Keselowski’s #2 Ford Fusion and Joey Logano’s #22 Ford Fusion

“It all boils down to performance at the race track,” says Kessler. “We look at weight, safety, and a variety of other metrics. But in the end, what matters is providing the race teams with the tools they need to win. That’s how we know when we’ve done our job well.”

That makes us happy because at PTC, what matters is providing engineers the tools they need to win. Kessler says, “We wouldn’t be able to do what we do without PTC Creo.”

Here’s a quick video that features Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney getting ready for his Cup debut in Kansas:

For more Team Penske videos, be sure to visit the Team Penske YouTube page. For more on PTC Creo, find out what’s new in the just-released PTC Creo 3.0.