It makes sense, right? The car in the lead cuts through the air creating less resistance for anyone who follows. Birds do it, cyclists do it—even some hypermilers give it a try.

According to Daytona 500 lore, the phenomenon called drafting was "discovered" in 1960 when Junior Johnson won the race in his slower, older Chevrolet by closely trailing the faster, newer Plymouths out of the pits and sticking in their draft.

Since 1960—or possibly for as long as people have been able to put two and two together—it’s been assumed that if one moving vehicle is immediately following another moving vehicle, the follower has to use less energy to achieve the same speed. Drafting’s effect on car fuel economy was even tested by those meddling*Mythbusters *who found that driving in the wake of semi-truck did increase a car’s fuel efficiency. Unfortunately to achieve that fuel savings, the car had to drive dangerously close in the truck's blind spot.

But if the prospect of slamming into the rear of semi doesn't dissuade you, a recent study suggests that the conventional wisdom about drafting may be dead wrong.

"People who have studied schooling fish and flocking birds always postulate that they flock because the ones downstream can save energy, and the guy who's at the front has to work harder. Here's a case where that gets turned on its head,” Karl Leif Ristroph, a graduate student and

Physics and co-author of a new paper about the phenomenon of reverse drafting, told Scientificblogging.com.

In an experiment Ristroph conducted with NYU researcher Jun Zhang, the researchers placed two tiny flags with tiny mirrors attached in row.

They flowed in soapy water and used lasers and optical interferometry to measure the flags' movement.

And here’s the surprising part: The flag in the lead flapped less and created less of a drag than the one drafting behind it. Even more interestingly, the flag in front flapped less when it did have a follower then when it was alone. “That was completely unexpected,"

Ristroph said.

Applying this phenomenon to streets filled with tons of steel propelling at breakneck speeds is difficult. But passing attempts at logic might suggest that if two objects in motion are the same or similar size, the object in the lead may benefit more from drafting than the one following. So leading the pack could potentially save you gas.

Knowing this won’t make driving down the highway with a SUV

riding up on your rear feel any more comfortable. But it does suggest that whoever created the laws of Physics may have had a sense of humor.

And if you want to get better gas mileage, it’s probably best to keep it safe and stick to the basics.

Picture by Flickr user exfordy.