Dr. Andy Randolph
Andy Randolph earned a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering in 1985 from Northwestern University under Professor C.K. Law with a thesis entitled, "Experimental investigation of the gasification mechanisms and soot characteristics of pure and multicomponent droplets" (which is a fancy way of saying that he looked at the transition from liquid fuel to exhaust).
Andy started his career working for General Motors. As I describe in my book,The Physics of NASCAR, Andy got into racing when he realized that his expertise with combustion could be used to gain those precious few horsepower that give one team the edge over the others. He used his vacations to work in race shops before actually finding permanent employment in motorsports. Over his 22-year career, he's worked on every type of engine from one-of-a-kind designs to mass-production engines. Andy has contributed to five Cup championships with three different teams. He had been Director of Engine Development for Hendrick Motorsports before moving to Bill Davis Racing at the start of 2007.
Andy's NASCAR work focuses on research and development, where his broad range of experience comes in handy. His primary contributions–at least those that are published as opposed to proprietary– have been in improving the accuracy of data acquisition technices, and combustion analysis in the abstract and in applications, like race car engines. Engine die-hards often refer to his work that showed that there can be significant variations from cylinder to cylinder and that you can't really optimize a "race engine" per se, but instead have to optimize it "one cylinder at a time".