The lightweight tech keeping NASCAR's champion comfortable

One hundred and 30 degrees. Four hours, 23 minutes and 22 seconds. That's the cockpit temperature a NASCAR Cup car reaches during a race, and the time taken to complete last year's Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte. It's one of the longest single-driver motor racing events in the world, with competitors strapped into the confines of a stripped-out stock car for the duration.

Like the engineering and aerodynamic advances made in motorsport over recent decades, improvements in driver performance have come under the spotlight. There's no need to venture down the well-trodden path of fitness and diet here - the vast majority of NASCAR drivers have fallen in line with the rest of motorsport in terms of physical preparation, for all the infamous jibes that NFL player Donovan McNabb directed at Jimmie Johnson in 2013 suggested to the contrary.