{"id":1362,"date":"2009-07-17T14:10:24","date_gmt":"2009-07-17T18:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/?p=1362"},"modified":"2017-07-28T14:22:11","modified_gmt":"2017-07-28T18:22:11","slug":"engineering-full-throttle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2009\/07\/engineering-full-throttle\/","title":{"rendered":"Engineering at Full Throttle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Stephen_Lee\"<\/a>As a high school student, Stephen Lee \u201999 dreamed of working on race cars. \u201cI watched Team Penske<\/a> win the Indianapolis 500 and thought, someday I\u2019m going to work for Roger Penske,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n

However, Lee\u2019s parents wanted him to become a doctor, so he enrolled at Hopkins\u2019 School of Arts and Sciences as a biology major. It only took a year and a half for him to realize that biology wasn\u2019t his strong suit and medicine wasn\u2019t his calling. Lee transferred to the Whiting School to study engineering mechanics, focusing on aerodynamics. It was the first step toward making his teenage dream come true.<\/p>\n

In the years since then, Lee\u2019s career has been on the fast track. From working in R&D for NASCAR\u2019s Team Penske to serving as a vehicle dynamics specialist for the late Dale Earnhardt, he has lent his engineering expertise to an impressive array of the profession\u2019s greats.<\/p>\n

After Hopkins, Lee headed to Old Dominion University for its master\u2019s program in aerospace engineering in a program funded by NASA\u2019s Langley Research Center. \u201cWe put cars inside the wind tunnel and measured forces such as drag, lift, and pressure,\u201d he says. One project involved using pressure-sensitive paint, which allows the engineers to visualize the pressure distribution on the car in a wind tunnel. \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to take accurate measurements from a car when it\u2019s moving, so instead we moved the wind,\u201d says Lee.<\/p>\n

One of the regular customers of Old Dominion\u2019s wind tunnel was Roger Penske\u2019s NASCAR race team. After Lee finished his master\u2019s degree, the team offered him a job to continue the R&D he had been working on at NASA. \u201cIt was pretty exciting. We were trying to figure out how to reduce drag and create more down force. The rules were quite strict so we could only make tiny changes to the shape of the car, like making the fenders slightly wider or narrower.\u201d The goal, overall, was to \u201ccheat the air,\u201d he says. \u201cWe were doing the same things other engineers do, except we were doing them on race cars.\u201d<\/p>\n

After two years with Team Penske, Lee worked briefly for a motorcycle start-up company before taking a job with Pratt and Miller<\/a>, where he spent six months working as a vehicle dynamics engineer assigned to Dale Earnhardt Jr.\u2019s team. When the season ended, Lee moved on to the NASCAR circuit as an on-the-road race engineer with Robert Yates Racing. The NASCAR season, which runs February through November, \u201cis very long and there is a race pretty much every week,\u201d Lee says. \u201cIt was a lot of work and a lot of travel, but it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be the first Asian race engineer in NASCAR. One of my favorite memories was being on pole in my first race, the Daytona 500.\u201d<\/p>\n

His next stop: Newman\/Haas\/Lanigan Racing<\/a> (NHLR) as part of the McDonalds-sponsored team, driven by Justin Wilson, a veteran of Formula One racing, and Graham Rahal, son of Bobby Rahal, the 1986 Indianapolis 500 champion.<\/p>\n

Soon after Lee joined NHLR, the team was thrown into a whirlwind of activity when ChampCar, the series in which it had competed, merged with IndyCar, ending a 12-year split in open-wheel racing. \u201cIt was tough,\u201d Lee says of the merger\u2019s aftermath. \u201cWe had only six weeks to get ready for the first race with new cars on new race tracks.\u201d Their concentrated efforts paid off, with the team winning both the second and penultimate race of the 2008 season.<\/p>\n

The dust barely had time to settle on those victories before Lee left Newman\/Haas\/ Lanigan\u2014and car racing\u2014to be a test director at the National Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex<\/a> at NASA\u2019s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. \u201cI decided it was time to grow up, settle down, and get a real job,\u201d he jokes. Lee still enjoys getting behind the wheel of his black 2005 Porsche Boxter S, though he swears he never speeds. \u201cI\u2019m a responsible guy!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ALUMNI MAKING NEWS: From NASCAR to NASA, Stephen Lee \u201999 is on the fast track.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-development","issue-summer-2009"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nEngineering at Full Throttle - JHU Engineering Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2009\/07\/engineering-full-throttle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Engineering at Full Throttle - JHU Engineering Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"ALUMNI MAKING NEWS: From NASCAR to NASA, Stephen Lee \u201999 is on the fast track.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2009\/07\/engineering-full-throttle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"JHU Engineering Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-07-17T18:10:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-07-28T18:22:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/SLee.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Abby Lattes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Abby Lattes\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"NewsArticle\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/2009\\\/07\\\/engineering-full-throttle\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/2009\\\/07\\\/engineering-full-throttle\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Abby Lattes\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/0244393be370fbc3ead8ec26062e9742\"},\"headline\":\"Engineering at Full Throttle\",\"datePublished\":\"2009-07-17T18:10:24+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-07-28T18:22:11+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/2009\\\/07\\\/engineering-full-throttle\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":686,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/2009\\\/07\\\/engineering-full-throttle\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2014\\\/07\\\/SLee.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Research & Development\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/2009\\\/07\\\/engineering-full-throttle\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/2009\\\/07\\\/engineering-full-throttle\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/2009\\\/07\\\/engineering-full-throttle\\\/\",\"name\":\"Engineering at Full Throttle - 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