Lara Carlson's research on NASCAR physiological demands featured in Bangor Daily News

The Nov. 17, 2011 published a feature on Lara Carlson, Ph.D., SWAGÊÓƵ assistant professor of applied exercise science, who has been laying the groundwork for research on the physiological demands placed on NASCAR drivers like Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jimmie Johnson.

Carlson, a member of the American College of Sports Medicine Motorsports Committee, made her first foray into the NASCAR performance two years ago, when she traveled to North Carolina to work with pit crew teams at Hendrick Motorsports — home of Gordon, Earnhardt and Johnson — on strength and conditioning.

Now she wants to find a Maine-based racing partner to study in the cockpit of a stock car. Carlson envisions planting the driver with electrodes to monitor physiological reactions, and having him swallow a pill-size transmitter that would record and broadcast his core temperatures from within.

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