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Keep in mind, that the goal of drag reduction, at its most basic level, is to not make air move. The less you make the air move, than the less energy you expend moving it. Seems like, "Well, Duh." but most fail to keep this in mind when analyzing things.
So in this case, analyzing how air gets scooped into a dead area (engine bay) and is forced to "Slow Down" we see, that really isn't what is happening. Consider that the air was just sitting there still (Lets assume calm winds) 18" over the surface of the road, along comes the car, the air gets scooped into the engine bay, and since it is hard to escape from there, or because it runs into things, it is forced to "Speed Up" to match the speed of the car. So you took something with mass (air) just sitting there, and forced it to speed up, that requires energy, which we refer to as drag.
So the less air you scoop through the engine bay, or wheel wells, or truck bed.....the less energy you are going to require to make it speed up. This is why the template is a good tool, as it moves through the air, it minimizes how much the air has to move, and it minimizes how much the air gets energized and swirls about as the vehicle passes through the air....It keeps the air as calm as possible during and after the vehicle passing through it.
Sooooo, don't think of it as "Pressure" so much as, "How much air is being accelerated?"
Make sense? Clear as mud? Lets talk.
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