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.
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Famous quotes containing the words wind and/or tunnel:
“Those craning birds are choice for you, songs that jump back
To the built voice, or fly with winter to the bells,
But do not travel down dumb wind like prodigals.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“It is the light
At the end of the tunnel as it might be seen
By him looking out somberly at the shower,
The picture of hope a dying man might turn away from,
Realizing that hope is something else, something concrete
You can’t have.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)