The problem? The European supplier had made a change in its supply chain without telling Hendrick, and the quality of the part was not to the standard it should have been. Documenting the problem in the Siemens Teamcenter tool (part of the PLM system) allowed engineers to do deep analysis of the problem and connect this analysis to the specifications of the component and the supplier. From there, Wall and team were also able to create a quality-control procedure that links into the information chain of the part to track quality moving forward.

As a result, since June 2004 engineers have rejected more than 1,000 of these parts that do not meet the specifications. "This one example has prevented many potential engine failures in the field," says Wall. "[We now have] 'technical memory' for our product information so we can learn from our past mistakes and provide a higher performance and a higher quality engine to our race teams," he says.

Jimmie Johnson's IT-fueled #48 races to the finish.

Info at Track

Nascar owes its roots to bootleggers in 1930s Appalachia who used souped-up cars to outrun the law. And such visceral energy and renegade spirit thrives on the track, despite the sport's solid spot in big business. (According to Nascar, it is the top spectator sport, holding 17 of the top 20 attended sporting events in the nation. It's the number-two rated regular-season sport on television, second only to the NFL, and has 75 million fans who purchase more than $2 billion in annual licensed product sales.)

But these days, high-tech fuels Nascar. Cars are forbidden by Nascar to use computerized systems during a race. Beforehand, however, is a different story.

The Hendrick Motorsports team, along with certain engineers, travel to a racetrack several weeks and sometimes months prior to an event. Each track is unique. That along with a multitude of other factors, such as weather and wind speed, determine what should be the perfect engine configuration. For example, testing with a dynamometer can't reproduce the distribution of the fuel as it corners the track in Daytona. Engine staff will test the car during allowed times and use that information to tune and make jetting adjustments to the carburetor. Other things that will be fine-tuned once in Daytona: weight distribution, air pressure, shocks, springs, sway bars, brake and aerodynamic trim configuration, and others.

"You have to find the combination of things that will give the driver the best performance at track," says Wall. Everyone showing up to a track meets the same situation, he says, so the challenge is "taking all those variables and in a short amount of time come up with a configuration that allows the driver to reach optimal speeds."