When NASCAR instituted the Next Gen car in 2022, it meant if teams were to find any type of advantage over the competition, they’d have to do so by capitalizing on razor-thin margins. Hendrick Motorsports, which cut the ribbon on a new Hexagon Lab in its Concord, NC campus on Wednesday, is using some truly advanced technology to push tolerances to the limit in an effort to find more speed in its race cars heading into the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season.
While the official ribbon cutting of the Hexagon Lab took place on Wednesday, Chad Knaus, Vice President of Competition for Hendrick Motorsports, says the team has been getting acclimated with the new Hexagon absolute arm equipment prior to this week’s unveiling.
It seems the equipment works well as Hendrick Motorsports picked up the victory in the Cook Out Clash exhibition event at Bowman Gray Stadium last weekend with Chase Elliott dominating the event.
“I’m not going to lie, although this is the grand opening, we jumped ahead. We’ve been using all of this equipment for a while, now, which is really awesome,” Knaus said in a statement to the media prior to the ribbon-cutting ceremony. “It’s really starting to come to fruition.”
In all, the race team has 33 absolute arms, also known in the industry as Romer arms, stationed around its facility. Romer arms are not a new technology, and certainly not new in the sport of NASCAR, as Hendrick Motorsports has been using forms of the technology for more than 20 years. However, the increased effectiveness of the equipment has allowed teams like Hendrick Motorsports to shift how they utilize the technology in modern times.
“We got our first, really started this partnership with Hexagon in 2002. We bought our first CMM in 2001 in the Fall,” Knaus recalled. “Took delivery in 2002, and the moment we brought it in here, it went straight to work. And it’s interesting, back then, it was all used for precision manufacturing, right? Engine components, pistons, heads, wrist pins, things of that nature. Well, as we have grown, it’s changed.
“Now, it’s a part of our daily lives, this Hexagon equipment. We use it for setting up the race cars, we use it for scanning the race cars. We use it for every component that comes in here. And I can tell you, I’ve personally set up thousands of race cars, okay? On a surface plate, using a string, using a plumb bob, transitioning into high-tech lasers, and slide rules, and now every single race car that goes to the racetrack from Hendrick Motorsports is set up using one of the rover arms. I don’t think there’s another company in the industry of motorsports that can say that they use them to that level.”
How far has the CMM technology come since 2002? Back then, the team says it took anywhere from four to eight hours to scan an entire NASCAR Cup Series race car. With the new absolute arm scanners, the team says scanning an entire race car can be completed in roughly 30 minutes.
Not only does the equipment allow the team to laser scan and check the specs of every single-source supplied part for its Next Gen race cars, ensuring the quality of every part that gets bolted onto the Hendrick Motorsports cars as it automatically checks each part against the preloaded specs from NASCAR, but the machine also preloads all of the scanned parts into its simulation tools. This allows the team to show up to the track each week with a car that is in the ballpark set-up-wise, which is crucial in today’s NASCAR, where practice time is ultra-limited.
The new partnership with Hexagon heading into the 2025 season has outfitted Hendrick Motorsports with the latest, greatest absolute arms. The new laser scanners are so accurate, that cars and components can be measured accurately to within 3 Microns (0.00012-inches).
Being able to push the absolute boundary of the measurement tolerances allotted by NASCAR has the team hoping that it can return to the NASCAR Cup Series head table at the year-end awards banquet in 2025. While HMS has collected 14 NASCAR Cup Series championships, most of any team in history, it has been shut out of winning the championship since Kyle Larson’s 2021 championship campaign.
“I think the last three years, we’ve had 10 wins. That’s the expectation, now. And the thing is, starting off with a Clash win, that’s already one win in our book, and we’re hoping that all of this hard work allows us to get a lot more of those wins,” said Roy Crump, the team’s Quality Supervisor. “And ultimately, you know, we want to be able to win the championship because of that as well. Sadly, we’re going through a drought with that, but hopefully, this will be the extra little step to get us better. Because each year, we’re getting better, but Penske is still beating us.”
Will the new Hexagon Lab within the Hendrick Motorsports race shop be the catalyst for Hendrick Motorsports to capture its 15th NASCAR Cup Series championship? Only time will tell, but confidence around the Hendrick campus is high. The team already had four of the best drivers in the sport, and some of the most talented engineers and mechanics as well. Now, they have top-of-the-line absolute arms packed throughout the building to help them push even further in the pursuit of perfection on the racetrack this season.
