http://www.racesimcentral.net/
Fortune 500, Meet Daytona 500
Slate ^ | 17 feb 03 | Charles Duhigg
When Michael Waltrip feinted briefly, sped in close behind another
car, and then whipped past Jimmie Johnson to win the rain-shortened
Daytona 500 on Sunday, the crowds surrounding the track, screaming
through mouthfuls of $7 chili dogs and a sea of Confederate flags,
cheered with wild glee. The E***ment! The Noise! The Complexity
Theory!
So an economics professor goes to the Daytona 500 It sounds like the
beginning of a bad joke. But for game theorists, stock car racing is
emerging as an unlikely laboratory for understanding the world. A 2002
Rand Corp. paper titled "Social Science at 190 MPH on NASCAR's Biggest
Superspeedways" suggests that NASCAR should interest academics because
it offers an opportunity to study a complexity rarely seen in other
sports but much evident in the real world: the tension between
cooperation and competition that is necessary for modern victory.
The NASCAR laboratory is a product of simple physics. Unlike other
sports, which are largely determined by individual athletic ability or
team strength, NASCAR requires its competitors to cooperate in order
to win. The forced cooperation is a product of two factors. First,
NASCAR imposes engineering restrictions that prevent any driver from
attaining a major equipment advantage over rivals. And second,
"drafting" allows cooperating cars to go faster. In the 1960s, drivers
discovered that if one stock car closely follows another, drafting in
its wake, both cars increase speed. The lead car benefits from a drop
in air resistance that comes when the slight vacuum at its rear wheels
is filled. And the second car speeds up because it's partially
protected from the wind. The more cars that are lined up, the faster
each car goes. Hence the monotonous rows that develop around the oval
track at Daytona.
Drafting raises all sorts of delightful game theory possibilities. As
long as two racers stay in a partnership, they can catch up with or
pass other cars that are not drafting. Partnering doesn't bring home
the trophy, though. To win, a racer must defect and pass his
opponents, but as David Ronfeldt, the author of the Rand paper
explains, when "a racer in a line wants to break out and get ahead he
needs at least one partner. If he swings out alone, he is bound to
lose momentum" and lose the race, leading to the NASCAR axiom that "it
takes two to pass one." So, cars engage in a delicate dance of game
theory and false allegiances, forming partnerships at 190 mph to
overtake the leader until a betrayal or defection leaves one car
falling back while the other partners with a new rival.
The gamesmanship gets even more complicated. When two cars begin
drafting, the second driver gains an advantage if he (and all NASCAR
drivers are "he") drops back a length or two and then re-enters the
draft zone and uses the tiny extra momentum to slingshot past the
leader. Additionally, following cars can "fan the tail" of the leader,
moving their bumper within inches of the lead car and fanning back and
forth to disrupt the airflow over the vehicle. As the aerodynamics
scatter, the lead car loses downward grip and the driver must slacken
acceleration to avoid sliding sideways. So lead drivers will slow when
they see followers begin to fall back or "mirror" the drivers behind
them to prevent attacks.
This tension between cooperation and competition is precisely where
Ronfeldt sees applicability to the real world, because it turns out
that similar dynamics exist all around us. When Microsoft and Cisco
developed partnerships during the '90s with potential competitors such
as Intel, Compaq, and Dell, they formed "drafting lines" that
weathered the booms and busts that damaged lone drivers like Apple.
Sen. Trent Lott's fall from grace and Sen. Bill Frist's ascendance can
be explained in part by a series of defections of potential rivals
from Lott to Frist that, once started, built a momentum that became
impossible for Lott to slow. At the core of these events is a tenet of
the emerging science of complexity: Cooperation can sustain a
surprisingly high degree of competition, as long as the participants
agree to some basic rules.
But why do some partnerships work while others end in disarray? Again,
NASCAR teaches lessons. Frist and Microsoft attract drafting partners
for the same reason that Dale "The Intimidator" Earnhardt won races:
They have enough "social capital" to convince competitors they will
honor their partnership contracts, even if just for a while. In
NASCAR, some of this social capital is achieved through agreements
struck prior to a race or by radio communication during competition.
(NASCAR's utility as a laboratory is enhanced by our ability to
retroactively review communications and compare them to tapes of the
race.) But more frequently it is a product of the NASCAR ethic of Hard
but Fair. "I'll race clean because I know the rules," one driver
explained. "But if you get too greedy, it's payback time." Put another
way, even though we may be rivals in the future, we'll agree to trust
each other right now.
NASCAR also serves as an interesting model for what causes certain
kinds of aggressive behavior. Economists at the University of Chicago
made a surprising discovery when they began examining NASCAR
accidents. While they initially assumed that aggressive driving and
the attendant crashes occur when racers are eager to pass cars in
front of them, it turns out the opposite is true. Drivers are more
likely to crash when someone is about to overtake them. In other
words, racers become more aggressive not when they think they can win,
but when they're afraid they're going to lose.
And so does everyone else. Research suggests that investment bankers
are more prone to commit fraud when they feel the competitor at their
heels. Students in school cheat not to get the "A," but to avoid the
"C." From Indonesian***fighting to technological change,
recklessness stems more from the fear of falling than the e***ment
of new heights. "Don't be greedy" is how Cisco's CEO explains his
strategy for transforming competitors into docile partners. The
cooperation of NASCAR, or any other system it turns out, persists only
when everyone believes he has the opportunity to win.
These implications may be significant. America stands at an
interesting crossroads: The drafting lines that developed in the wake
of the Gulf War have fractured. Our social capital in the global
arena, which carried us through much of the last decade, may be on the
wane. Last year, when President Bush invited Tony Stewart, the 2002
NASCAR Winston Cup champion, to the White House, some cynics suggested
he was pandering for Southern votes. But maybe the president was just
looking for a few tips.
=====================================================================
Question: Why are there so many trees along the Champs Elysee?
Answer: So the Nazis could march in the shade.
=====================================================================