Every NASCAR fan will recognize Hendrick Motorsports as the name behind such celebrated drivers as Jeff Gordon and Terry Labonte. At its sophisticated racing complex in Charlotte, NC, Hendrick Motorsports designs, builds, and tests cars and engines for all its race teams. In the fiercely competitive atmosphere of NASCAR racing, where cars are required to run up to 500 miles in three to four hours, there can be no room for error during the engine assembly process.

Nathan Carter, a metrology technician at Hendrick, was experiencing a quality control problem in his machine shop. He used a coordinate measuring device called a CM machine to check the tolerances on pistons and cylinder heads. Any part that is more than .001 of an inch out of specification must be rejected or corrected. The CM machine is powered by compressed air. As with all compressors, there was moisture and some oil in the air lines that was affecting the machine’s performance. Nathan did a web search and found his way to Beach Filters. Once there, he was able to contact Pnucor Process Engineers, his local Beach Distributor.

Pnucor Sales Engineer Jim Phelps had a solution. He recommended the installation of a Beach model F-65C at the point-of-use. The Beach unit immediately went to work removing the oil and moisture, and trapping any particulate as small as 0.3 micron. The CM machine was returned to 100% operating efficiency! Because of this success, Carter plans to incorporate other Beach units in critical areas where clean, dry air is a necessity. “In the fast paced world of NASCAR where there is no room for downtime,” said Carter. “Beach is a real problem solver.”