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Music

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NARRATOR: From space shuttles coming back home to astronauts

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making training and weather reconnaissance flights, the Shuttle Landing

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Facility normally sees some of the fastest craft on wings.

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Recently, it hosted one of the fastest vehicles on wheels as NASCAR's

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Joe Gibbs Racing team used the stretch to evaluate its car.

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Dan Olson, Aerodynamic Engineer, Joe Gibbs Racing: This is, this is our

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first time testing at the SLF here at the Kennedy Space Center and it's

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really been a nice facility so far for us to use.

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Matt DiBenedetto, Driver, Joe Gibbs Racing:  I never thought I'd get lucky

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enough to come out and be able to use the Kennedy Space Center

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runway.You know, a lot of history with the shuttle landing here and all that.

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NARRATOR: DiBenedetto drove a car just like the ones raced at

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superspeedways such as Daytona and Talladega. Capable of speeds

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above 200 mph, the cars top out at about 230 mph, the same speed as

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the shuttle when it touches down.

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DAN OLSON: Today we're doing coast down testing, so we'll have the

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driver go out, accelerate to 205 mph, he'll coast down, he'll put it in neutral

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and coast all the way down to 150 then he'll accelerate again back up to

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205, coast down to 150, turn around at the end and repeat that two more

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times as he comes back. We'll have him do three loops of that so we'll

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actually get 12 coasts per outing and then we're able to take that data and,

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from the coast segments, analyze the drag and downforce on the vehicle.

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NARRATOR: The three-mile-long runway at Kennedy is one of the

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longest in the world. It also is flatter than many other testing grounds for

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high-performance vehicles.

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Matt DiBenedetto: Obviously with the runway being so long, it opens up to

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a lot of things we could do for testing.

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NARRATOR: The results of the testing could show on the race track in short order.

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MATT: If it's something good, it could be transferred as close as next week and as far as next year.

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NARRATOR: Although the Joe Gibbs crew is used to being in the spotlight, some would