Need for Speed: Army Looks to Auto Racing for Ground Vehicle Edge.

• Author: Carberry, Sean

NOVI, Michigan -- The auto racing industry and the Army have more than a few things in common. The mission is to win, the quest for cutting-edge technology never ends and the tech workforce is critical to success. That's why some in the Army's ground vehicles community are taking a closer look at what they can learn from the racing community.

There is precedent for that collaboration, said Matt Carroll, chief executive officer of Pratt Miller during the Ground Vehicle Systems Engineering and Technology Symposium, organized by the Michigan chapter of the National Defense Industrial Association.

His company began in 1989 as an auto racing venture. Then, in 2008, the Army's predecessor of Combat Capabilities Development Command's Ground Vehicle Systems Center, or GVSC, approached Pratt Miller. Troops were being injured and killed by improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army wanted to see if the company could help.

"They said, 'How the heck can these cars be crashing into walls and these cars and drivers are walking away?'" he said.

The company looked at how they could apply what they learned at the track every weekend to help the Army modify its vehicles to better protect troops from blasts, he said.

David Gorsich, chief scientist for GVSC, said the racing and off-roading industries are natural places for the Army to look to for ideas and solutions for things like surviving roadside bomb blasts.

"I was very engaged in coming up with those techniques and bringing in auto industry folks who did crash to understand" how to address the problem of blasts coming from below a vehicle rather than crashing into something or side impacts of a typical collision, he said.

The Army looked at how to redesign crew compartments and armor plating based on some of the feedback from the auto racing industry, he said. The Army also looked to see what it could learn from racing pit stops.

That led to thinking about how to redesign vehicles to make components more modular and easier to swap out on vehicles to "increase the readiness level and speed up the maintenance," Gorsich said.

"One of the things we looked at is, how do you swap out the engine real fast? So, quick disconnects, architecting a different way so we can quickly start doing stuff like that," he said.

However, the engagement and collaboration with industry waned, he said. It has picked up again in recent years with the growth of off-road and extreme racing, which correlate...