Welding to Win with Joe Gibbs Racing® Joe Gibbs Racing®

SUCCESS

In suburban Charlotte, N.C., a recently completed 150,000 square foot steel-and-glass white structure is home to Joe Gibbs Racing®.

It’s a virtual racecar laboratory, where engineers work side-by- side with master fabricators to idden along a tree-lined shines in pristine white and better create the fastest possible parkway of unmarked resembles an operating room than H office buildings in suburban a fabrication shop. racing machines. Those team Charlotte, N.C., lies a brand new fabricators, in turn, rely on the steel-and-glass white structure that It’s a virtual racecar laboratory, where could be home to any number of engineers work side-by-side with welding experts at Lincoln corporations in any industry. master fabricators to create the Electric®. fastest machines possible within the But through the main door it be- guidelines established by their sport. comes clear that this is something Those team fabricators, in turn, rely more than an insurance agency or on the welding experts at Lincoln software firm. It’s home to Joe Gibbs Electric® for welding equipment, Racing®, bejeweled in trophies, racing access to emerging welding tech- jackets and display cases literally nologies and training for filled with artifacts from the nation’s recommended techniques using fastest growing sport. the most exotic base materials.

Past the receptionist, across the “Most people don’t realize that we main lobby, an observation deck build a separate car for each race,” overlooks one of the most advanced explained Mike Logan, a fabricator auto shops in the world. Through for Gibbs Racing. “We’ll have 12 to a panel of high windows is a 14 cars ready each season, and conspicuous absence of grease- more if there are bad wrecks.” stained floors and stray tools. Instead, the vast open space of Along the main wall behind Logan more than 150,000 square feet sit half a dozen No.20 orange Home

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MC06-173 SUCCESS

® Welding to Win with Joe Gibbs Racing 2/4 Joe Gibbs Racing®

Depot® NASCAR® Nextel® Cup cars, all nesses and joint configurations. Some in various stages of completion. Each rare parts are titanium, where NASCAR® one is meticulously hand built for 2005 rules permit. NASCAR® Nextel® Cup winner Tony Stewart to race throughout the TIG welding is the preferred arc welding 2006 season to defend his 2005 process for aluminum in NASCAR® and Championship title. Lincoln® Precision TIG® welders are the preferred tools for the job at Joe Gibbs Some 200-plus craftsmen at Joe Gibbs Racing®. Joe Gibbs Racing® exclusively Racing® work 40 to 50 hours a week uses TIG and MIG welders from The year-round building cars for Gibbs’ Lincoln Electric Company®. In turn, three Nextel® cup drivers. Each car is Lincoln® is recognized as an exclusive designed and fabricated to the unique NASCAR Performance® partner. requirements of its intended track, race configuration, speed and driver. Many TIG welds in NASCAR® are per- formed out-of-position. Distortion is But long before the rubber hits the road, “The guys at Lincoln® are always an issue, especially with fabrication consumes roughly 950 man- constantly looking for a better aluminum. However, using Lincoln’s® hours on each car, not including the way to do things, and for our pulse systems controls heat input in the 500-horsepower engines brought in purposes, they are on the weld to minimize that distortion, many ® ® from outside. About 95% of NASCAR cutting edge of this stuff.” top NASCAR welders say. In some racecars are TIG-welded by hand. instances, fit tolerances must fall within said Shane Love, 1/1000ths of an inch, and distorted Hundreds of individual parts are cut, Chief Fabricator for aluminum contours cannot be tolerated, ® welded and machined by hand, from the Joe Gibbs Racing . said Shane Love, chief fabricator for chassis and frame to suspension and Joe Gibbs Racing®, who oversees drive train. The bodies are painstakingly production of Stewart’s cars. shaped to reduce wind drag. They are and technology of each component tested in multi-million dollar wind meets the high standards established by “Lincoln’s® pulsing mode is great for tunnels and then reshaped again. the aerospace industry. About half the this,” he said. “Nothing else on the parts are carbon steel and many are market can touch it. I wouldn’t work Most top shops demand that the quality aluminum in a wide range of thick- with anything else.”

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work without intervention, make fabrication simple for the wide range of welding work in this shop. Local Lincoln® technical engineers backed by a technical team back at headquarters also lend their expertise to optimize machine settings for the toughest applications.

“The guys at Lincoln® are constantly looking for a better way to do things,” Love said. “And for our purposes, they are on the cutting edge of this stuff. They do a great job of working with us here in the “Quality welding is the main issue with shop to make us better “Quality welding is the main these cars, and there is very little margin welders.” issue with these cars, and of error,” Love said. “They need to look good and perform even better.” there is very little margin of error,” Love said. Nearly all welds on Stewart’s cars “They need to look good and are made with The Lincoln Electric® perform even better.” Precision TIG® 375—a machine designed for welding specialty alloys and aluminum in a variety of TIG The tolerances and standards are process applications. It’s a favorite imperative both for performance and tool for many in the aerospace industry, weight, Love added. While NASCAR® as well, for the same reasons. imposes weight restrictions for cars, the trick for fabricators is welding the The Precision TIG® features Lincoln’s® strongest joints possible without MicroStart™ Technology for a smoother, unnecessarily increasing weight. more controlled arc and better starting arc performance. With MicroStart™, “Every ounce matters,” said Dennis welders can more easily establish a Klingman, a welding teacher to stable arc at low amperage levels, NASCAR® fabricators with Lincoln even down to two amps. Electric® and chairman of the National Education Committee with the American “The start is really nice,” Love said. Welding Society. “At almost 200 miles “And that’s very important for the overall per hour, these cars are pushed to their quality of these welds. I also love the very limits. They have to be strong for AC Auto Balance® to give me the right safety, but they need to be light for amount of cleaning vs. penetration, performance. They’re right on the used together with the pulsing mode, edge. Every weld has to be perfect.” for maximum control on aluminum.”

The cars built for Stewart are no The Precision TIG® 375 provides full exception. Defending the title, he and function capability for setting pulse his team of fabricators know that even frequency, background amperage and a single imperfection could mean a percent peak versus background time. race—or worse, his life. Most welds are The easy to understand control panel, inspected visually, X-rayed or tested along with the AC Auto-Balance® and with magnetic particle inspections. Micro-Start™ technologies that do their ©2006 Joe Gibbs Racing®

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Learning New Technologies

For the past seven years, Lincoln® has hosted a special seminar by invitation only to an elite group of welders and technicians in leading motorsport venues. Each December, about 40 of the world’s top race team welding fabricators travel to Lincoln’s® world headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio, to advance their education, share welding techniques and learn about emerging technologies.

With the rapid pace of advancing technology, engineers at Lincoln Electric® continue to build on their research at such a pace that annual seminars are needed, Lincoln’s® Dennis Klingman said.

“I’ve learned so much coming to these seminars, I can’t believe anyone serious about racing or building cars wouldn’t benefit even more,” said Love, as he began to lay bead down on one of Tony Stewart’s cars. “You have to keep up, man. ’Cause if you don’t, the other guys will. And then it’s all over.”

Featured Lincoln Products

Precision TIG® 375 The Power To PerformSM!

The Precision TIG® 375 delivers the Power to Perform!SM —setting a new standard in Square Wave Technology™. Combining outstanding value-added features and patented Micro-Start™ Technology, the Precision TIG® has the widest range of welding current in its class and features 25 more amps of power at 40% duty cycle and a superior low-end. This machine comes standard with full featured sequencing and pulsing controls and power factor correction. Available in both machine-only models or a convenient Water-Cooled Ready-Pak® with Cart, the Precision TIG® 375 is ready to meet all of your welding needs. Order K1903-1, Precision TIG® 375 Ready-Pak® Package