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I've now been asked what experts I consulted with when writing the book.
Firstly, Dick Barnard was my tech consultant at every stage of the book. Dick started his career as an undergraduate aeronautical engineering apprentice at Handley Page Ltd, and later became Principal Lecturer and Postgraduate Research Tutor at the University of Hertfordshire. He is also a founder member of the UK Wind Engineering Society, and a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. He has been a consultant for numerous car companies, including Jaguar and Rolls-Royce Bentley. Richard is the author of Road Vehicle Aerodynamics and has written many technical papers. Dick is an excellent writer, and he was very effective in telling me "they don't need to know that!" when I headed down too technical an alley. He also told me some very funny stories about aero testing Bentleys with their chief road testing driver.
Joseph Katz (Professor of Aerospace Engineering at San Diego State University, and author of two books on car aerodynamics) read the more technical chapters - and he had plenty of comments to make! Joe was probably my harshest critic.
Adrian Gaylard (Jaguar Land Rover chief aerodynamicist) saw the whole book in draft form. Adrian pointed me towards some significant engineering papers that I’d missed, and wasn't at all backward in highlighting where I thought I was leading readers astray (like the original draft on the topic of vortex generators!).
Willem Toet (F1 aerodynamicist) read most of the chapters. We had lots of email debates about things like front/rear distributions of downforce - understandably, Willem came from a more 'performance' background.
The thing that struck me about all the experts was how down-to-earth they were. They all understood that I was writing for 'normal people' and so math had to be kept to a minimum. (Sometimes that was hard for Joe to pull back from, but he usually did.) They were also all very positive about my on-road testing techniques (some of which I developed while writing the book). By the same token, none were the sort of people to spoon-feed you - and you wasted their time at your peril!
But from my point of view, the biggest thing they gave me was great confidence in what I was writing. As completely self-taught in car aero, I needed the reassurance - that what I had come to believe through research and on-road testing, was actually also what these experts believed.
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