Racecar Aerodynamics: Designing for Speed by Joseph Katz Book Review

For those of us interested in the aerodynamics of racing cars, this book provides good explanations of nearly all top-level aerodynamic theories.

Title: Race Car Aerodynamics: Designing for Speed
Author: Joseph Katz
Publisher: Bentley

Release Date: 09 March 2006

Pages: 270

ISBN: 08376 01428

The author Joseph Katz is a professor at San Diego state University and during his career has been involved in nearly all areas of motorsport from drag racing to formula one. Over this time he has written a series of publications focusing largely upon the aerodynamics of racing cars.

His book Race Car Aerodynamics: Designing for Speed is primarily written to cater for the larger audience and hasn’t made any assumptions about the readers’ prior theoretical knowledge. As such he starts each concept in a clear and concise manner starting from and building upon the basic fundamentals of aerodynamics. This approach allows for the book to be picked up by anyone from the professional engineer to the hobbyist and does not sacrifice content for either.

Anyone who reads this book no matter their level of knowledge will be able to gain a deeper understanding of the background theory and concepts that guide all aerodynamicists including wing theory.

The text and images contained in the book are all black and white (which has proved an issue for me in other publications where all the images have seemed to merge into unintelligible silhouettes) yet the lack of colours does not hinder the readers’ ability to clearly disconcern all aspects of each individual image. 

The overall breakdown of chapters within the book is good with individual topics explained fully and in detail, this allows for a smooth transition between concepts lending the book a nice flow through out avoiding confusion. Real life examples are almost always given to further help reinforce ideas to the practically minded reader.

The inclusion of a large variety of images and examples also means that the text does not feel quite as mathematically biased in this genre and as such it proves to be a much easier read following more along the lines of a highly detailed guide book opposed to a reference text.

The only small issue I have with this book are that it hasn’t had a more recent update to cover later Formula one examples as most of the information only covers up to around 2004, This does not mean that the information contained within is out of date as aerodynamics is more of an "evolutionary art opposed to a revolutionary one".

Within the book the author has also included greyed boxes containing formulas relevant to each specific are. Each formula box is filled with clear explanations of how the formulas are used, allowing for those with no previous experience to grasp the underlying mathematics governing the use of each. Personally I found these boxes especially useful. 

Although aerodynamics is heavily mathematically based, the general principles require no mathematical knowledge yet it is always a good idea to understand the maths behind the ideas.

Conclusion:

I really rate this book highly and I often find myself referring to it over some of my more analytical books like Understanding Aerodynamics by Doug McLean. The way the author always explains concepts in such a clear and concise manner is especially welcome, which is helpful if like myself you are a keen F1 fan and often find the televised explanations lacking and need a quick reference just to suss out possible benefits of recent changes. In this regard the book would make an excellent present for any one interested in forms of racing.

Although the book may fall slightly on the basic side of degree level texts it is still more than advanced enough for anyone interested in aerodynamics. A study of this book before reading more advanced publications would definitely help in achieving a greater base knowledge which can then be expanded upon in sections without trying to learn everything at once.

In all for anyone seeking more of an insight into the aerodynamics of racing cars, this is a highly recommended book.