The primary challenge in designing NASCAR vehicles is to coax as much horsepower out of the engines as possible. The "stock" V8 engines, although limited to 358 cubic inches in displacement, can be modified to produce up to 750 horsepower, enabling the cars to reach speeds of over 200 mph on the banked oval race tracks.

Hendrick Motorsports (home of driver Jeff Gordon) engineering group manager Jim Wall uses a complete suite of SDRC software, including Imageware, for advanced surfacing and reverse engineering. "We have 99 percent of our engine in I-deas at the component level," says Wall. "We can use their CFD tools to analyze flow and then use FEA for stress analysis and checking structural integrity," he says. "And then once we're satisfied that the design meets our criteria, we generate machine tool setups to produce the parts in-house."