Fuel Cells Will Be 17 Gallons In 2007
Monday, May 8th, 2006 12:09pm EDT
By Luke, Thunder Lounge
Published on Thunder Lounge.
According to a quote from John Darby, Nascar’s Nextel Cup series director, as reported by the Roanoke Times, the current 22 gallon fuel cells will be reduced to 17 gallons for 2007.
This was in response to questions regarding the decision to run a 16 gallon fuel cell at Charlotte’s Lowe’s Motor Speedway later this month for the All-Star weekend, as well as the events for the following weekend including the Coca-Cola 600 which is Nascar’s longest race distance on the schedule.
It is a known issue that there were incredible problems with Goodyear’s tire compund last year at the track, after the track tried to use levigation to better the racing surface. While it has worked in previous attempts, like Martinsville for example, it was a miserable failure at the Charlotte track. This lead to the track being repaved since the October race last fall, and the Cup series just completed their first official testing on the new surface this past week. Goodyear also held an invite only test earlier this year to get a feel for their new compund.
After the open testing session for the Cup series last week, it was a common theme among the garage that the tire compund was incredibly sturdy, and there shouldn’t be any issues with the tire strength on a full fuel run. However, John Darby stands by Nascar’s decision to use the 16 gallon fuel cell and is on record as saying that even though the recent test data from the session last week is positive that it still has yet to be seen over the course of a 600 mile race.
“Until you go through that 600 miles, you don’t know what’s going to happen,” Darby said.
He also said that more data is needed before deciding to allow the normal fuel cell, but didn’t rule out the possibility that it may be in time for the return trip in October. Either way, it looks like it won’t matter for next year.
The end result of the smaller fuel cells is that the length of a full fuel run will be shorter, and therefore allow teams to change tires more frequently. This is all in hopes that if there are problems with the tires Goodyear brings to the track, when the field goes racing it will be counter-acted by the shorter distance a car can run under a full fuel run.
As nothing is set in stone, until it happens, we’ll see if this plays out and Nascar does indeed implement a 17 gallon fuel cell next year.
Link to the article: Read more at the Roanoke Times
Filed Under: Busch Series, Nascar, Nextel Cup, Tracks
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