Wind Shear Wind Tunnel
In 2006 planning began for a commercial wind tunnel. Gene Haas commissioned California-based Triliad Development to oversee the project. The facility was designed to be the most advanced automotive wind tunnel in the world. The facility is centered around an MTS rolling road which allows a car to be restrained in place directly on top of a massive tread mill-like machine with a 70-foot-long (21 m) by 10-foot-wide (3.0 m) by 1 mm thick stainless steel belt rotating at speeds up to 180 miles per hour (290 km/h). The rolling road accurately simulates the dynamics of a car on the race track, unlike traditional fixed-floor tunnels. Construction of the new wind tunnel began in 2007 and was completed by year-end. After six months of commissioning, the wind tunnel opened to its first customer, a Formula One race team, in July 2008. Today the Wind Shear facility counts numerous NASCAR, IndyCar, Formula One and ALMS teams as customers. Wind Shear is owned 100% by Gene Haas.
Read more about this topic: Gene Haas
Famous quotes containing the words wind and/or tunnel:
“It is not a piece of fine feminine Spitalfields silk—but is of the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships’ cables & hausers. A Polar wind blows through it, & birds of prey hover over it. Warn all gentle fastidious people from so much as peeping into the book—on risk of a lumbago & sciatics.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“The drama critic on your paper said my chablis-tinted hair was like a soft halo over wide set, inviting eyes, and my mouth, my mouth was a lush tunnel through which golden notes came.”
—Samuel Fuller (b. 1911)