Deep in the Pennsylvania mountains lies one of motorsport’s biggest secrets. Built in the 1890s, the Laurel Hill Tunnel was one of a series of tunnels opened to accomodate the South Pennsylvania Railroad. When the railroad never opened the tunnels were abandoned. In the 1940s Laurel Hill Tunnel found new life as part of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. In order to alleviate congestion on the turnpike the tunnel’s were again abandoned in the 1960s in favor of bypasses cut through the mountains. Rumors began to circulate around 2004 that a motorsports team was using one of the abandoned tunnels for testing. As the years have gone on pictures have surfaced of the tunnel and speculation began about the team using the facility. While the Pennsylvania Turnpike Authority has refused to name the team who uses the tunnel, through a patent and photos, it became clear that Chip Ganassi Racing was the one who gave the tunnel new life.Referred to internally as LHT, CGR’s team of engineers use the facility as a giant moving wind tunnel for its IRL, Grand-Am and NASCAR teams. It was initially built for straight-line testing for CGR’s IRL teams. If you don’t know, straight-line testing really is the key to success in the IRL since track testing was banned in 2004. During straight-line testing the cars get going as fast as they can and then slow to calculate down-force and wind-resistance. The tunnel provides the team near perfect conditions for figuring this out and is widely credited with giving CGR the edge in the IRL. While it has proven beneficial for their IRL teams, it is debatable whether it helps their NASCAR teams. Because the aerodynamics and weight of a stock car are so much different than an Indy car, straight-line testing fails to simulate real world track conditions. The testing process is some what simply, the cars get going as fast as they can and then stop on a turntable at the opposite end. From there the engineers assess the data and make necessary changes; they then do it all over, again and again. The entire testing process can last for hours.
The testing has not been without incident either. Rumor has it there have been a few wrecks in the tunnel, which, as it turns out, isn’t perfectly straight. Due to the secrecy of testing in the IRL, Ganassi representatives will neither confirm nor deny that such a place exists. In a USA Today interview Ganassi Indy chief Mike Hull would only say the team tested somewhere in the United States. Despite this, it is one of the most commonly known secrets in NASCAR and the IRL. This facility is not only unique in NASCAR but unique in the world of motorsports. In the era of limited testing every little advantage helps. While LHT may not be Area 51, you are about as likely to get information about it from the heads of the team as you are to get information about the fabled military testing grounds from the US Government.
