Suspicious fuel mileage? (warning Kansas spoilers)

[Joe Fan]

I was at the Kansas race and I can tell you something seems aweful fishy about the #12 car's fuel mileage. If my memory is correct, Newman got around 78 laps on a tank of fuel. And he was able to generate enough horsepower to hold off Bill Elliott, who by far had the most dominant car all day long.

[muggle not]

Fact is Newman probably has the best team in Nascar right now. His gas stategist is by far much better than any of the others including Yak-Yak's.

[24thunder]

I'm seriously wondering if there isn't something fishy going on with the #12's fuel mileage,doesn't make sense to Me,They just wait for enough caution laps & then go on to victory,not once but several times because of the great fuel-mileage
Ryan's 8 wins though does debunct some posters that have stated with the closeness of competition nowadays that the days of the 6 or more wins by any one team are over.He also has 7 poles to go along with the wins.

[gttouring]

the eight wins is the fuel mileage Q. how do they do it over the others? the poles is just Ryan's speed in the #12.
It is a penske operation-do we expect less?
The fuel thing must be investigated by NASCAR, isn't there post race inspection what do they find- they go 10 laps longer on fuel than most, maybe they have a fuel tank cooler, making the fuel denser and shoving more in there, or maybe they have a dummy return line and it ends in the tank but is made really to hold an extra 3 gallons....

[Joe Fan]

If memory serves me correct, doesn't a Winston Cup car hold 22 gallons of fuel?

78 laps at a 1.5 mile track means that Newman went 117 miles+ on one tank of fuel. His gas mileage would have been 5.38 miles per gallon. They did run a number of laps under caution and they say two caution laps equal one race lap. Let say that they ran 15 of the 78 laps under caution. This would equate to running about 71 laps on a tank of fuel, or 4.89 miles per gallon.

[24thunder]

Originally posted by Joe Fan
If memory serves me correct, doesn't a Winston Cup car hold 22 gallons of fuel?

78 laps at a 1.5 mile track means that Newman went 117 miles+ on one tank of fuel. His gas mileage would have been 5.38 miles per gallon. They did run a number of laps under caution and they say two caution laps equal one race lap. Let say that they ran 15 of the 78 laps under caution. This would equate to running about 71 laps on a tank of fuel, or 4.89 miles per gallon.

A NASCAR stockcar is listed as getting anywhere from 4.4 to 4.8 MPG,the #12 team has got to have a trick of some kind up Their sleeve IMO

[muggle not]

Didn't Mayfield make the same stop with Newman......and didn't he also finish the race.

Newman gave Harvick gas pains.

[24thunder]

Originally posted by muggle not
Didn't Mayfield make the same stop with Newman......and didn't he also finish the race.

Newman gave Harvick gas pains.

He was one of 6 other drivers that didn't pit,along with Ryan Newman,but Ryan Newman had to hold off a hard charging Bill Elliott in the closing laps,wouldn't that seem to indicate that the #12 car was getting poorer fuel mileage?

[muggle not]

Originally posted by 24thunder
He was one of 6 other drivers that didn't pit,along with Ryan Newman,but Ryan Newman had to hold off a hard charging Bill Elliott in the closing laps,wouldn't that seem to indicate that the #12 car was getting poorer fuel mileage?

Not neccessarily, no one ever accused Mayfield of being a top driver. Newman has probably one of, if not the best, crews and engineering program in Nascar. Penske's program is tops. Rusty unfortunately resisted changes and insisted on his hands on approach.

[gttouring]

i heard on windtunnel a caller call in and said they are stufing the rollcage with fuel
porbably just lines and lines rolled up for fuel, or a bladder line, to hold more...
or he has 2 "drink bottles"
one for gatorade and theother for 110 leaded gasoline. enough for a few laps

[Emfa]

Originally posted by gttouring
i heard on windtunnel a caller call in and said they are stufing the rollcage with fuel

... which I'm sure Nascar would never bother checking. Really, they are just turning a blind eye to all that the 12 team is doing because it's Penske's 'turn.'

[muggle not]

Ok, for all those that were accusing Ryan and his team of cheating, please read on:

12's secret? smaller carb? With all the talk about Ryan Newman’s race strangling fuel runs of late it’s no wonder that many of his peers are frustrated to the point where they’re hurling accusations. But the story behind Newman & Company’s fuel secret crawled out of the bag and into the lap of TFR [Team Ford Racing]. The secret to the formula — bigger is not always better in Winston Cup. The NASCAR specifications for a carburetor allow a carburetor will flow up to 830 cubic feet per minute maximum. Newman’s men have found if they run a carb that flows 750 cfm that they give up only two horsepower to what the bigger carb delivers. That smaller carb, without 2 hp, brings the team about 0.5 miles per gallon extra in fuel consumption. Taking that 0.5 mpg and working it with the 22-gallon NASCAR-specified fuel cell, you see that Newman has an 11-mile cushion compared to his competitors. Meaning that Newman could run an extra seven laps at a 1.5-mile track, such as is found at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Unfortunately for the Alltel team the secret is starting to filter out to some of the other teams, however, the power lost to the smaller carb is not quite at the level that the Penske motor men are capable of recapturing, but darn close. Give those who have started to experiment with the smaller carb a few weeks and any deficit should soon disappear.(Ford Racing)(10-13-2003)

[rustyfan]

Hm, BIG surprise that came out of Ford's PR department

Also, it's pretty amusing to read the articles where Winston Cup officals are interviewed about Newman - they just laugh at the accusations thrown about and assure everyone that if Newman was cheating, they would have found out. Not to mention they have torn down the #12 car during inspections numerous times in the open for everyone else to see, so I think the crew chiefs, drivers and owners whining are just jealous about the fact that Newman's crew has found something the others haven't thought about.

[gttouring]

Dave Despain answered this question.
He was told by Penske racing South that the fuel mileage is a result of a SMALLER than spec carburettor. it gives up 2 horsepower. so this thing has got what 798hp?
and in doing so the car now achieves 1/2 a mile per gallon more, in a 22 gallon tank- it get 11 miles more.
wow, who would have thought smaller is better?

[429CJ]

Penke cars have history, just remember the Trans-Am Sunoco-Camaros.

[Hazza]

but c'mon you don't accuse Dale of cheating at the Super-Speedways, its possible that they've just worked something out.

[gttouring]

we know Penske wasn't cheating with the smaller carb- it was just sooo weird, DEI has made a history of plate racing from years before, is it wind tunnel stuff? higher copression or more revs? they are doing something but the goods work out Michael Waltrip won last time, not dale, so we see it is a team development not cheating, and there are teams hanging in there too, jeff Gordon was up to 3rd, before he shuffled back to 5th so Hendrick is learning fast

[Roselady3]

Penski doesn't "leak" anything out that they don't want let out. The smaller carb story is a BS coverup, trying to throw other teams off guard. Smaller carb would save gas. But it wouldn't produce the horse power needed to fight off these other drivers.

Funny how that all stopped.......
Can anybody say SMOKE SCREEN????

[gttouring]

the reported Dyno results from penske are 2-3 horsepower down on the other carb, so they did lose some power, and it wasn't a huge gain in gas milage 1/2 a mile per gallon which is 11 miles per tank more, that is significant. It isn't a 2 barrel carb, it is a slightly smaller (i.e. metric Probably toyota sourced, carb for penske) no smoke screen, just everyone trying to do the same thing now, it is a good enough answer-makes sense really, after all ryan is a helluva driver, so i am sure he make the best of it- rusty is getting the same milage and not bad performances, i bet he is more of a lead foot than Ryan, and doesn't nurse it as much.
another aid in this scenario would be presurized fuel line, or a stronger pump to push less fuel through the lines and getting good response to the carb, or different jets. lots could be going on but the fuel milage is all that reall seems to be the case here, after all a good car can run down the penske's really easily when they are full...Stewart...

[Roselady3]

They all use a four barrel carb. The news released just said it was a smaller carb- smaller diameter of the barrels. which would allow LESS air through- thus being the equivilant of using a restrictor plate. Less air would result in MUCH less horse power, not just a few. (choking the engine) Like the restrictor races- little throttle control. Side by side raing with a smaller carb verses a larger carb wouldn't even be a race. The smaller carb would loose.

Penski wouldn't release a "real" secret of success. This was a BS smokescreen to get the media off their backs.

I don't know if they are cheating or if they found a legitimate way to squeeze more gas out of a rock---but the smaller carb theory isn't it.

[gttouring]

is it possible that the Carb barrels are the same size and the bowl, and jets are different. perhaps the fuels lines are thinner walled and hold a bit more gas,
(and read my post- i did not say it was a 2 barrel- i stated it wasn't something obvious like a two barrel.)
The smaller barrel idea isn't resitrictor plate small, but a hair's width smaller- just something, it might be a 850cfm carb vs. an 848cfm carb where only 2 hp and the same torque would never be noticed, also I may point out the penske Dodge (penske-jasper) motors have shorter pushrods (as per Racecar engineering Mgazine) and thus can rev a bit higgher faster and make more torque but reach the peak HP sooner in the rpm range so a smaller carb with this setup in the RPM range down the backstraight at joliet you wouldn't notice it, and maybe it'd look like the dodge pulls away, only to have the Chevy of Gordon or Junior catch up at braking and turn in. So the advantage is in conjunction with other motor bits....I don't think it was a smokescreen, but a red herring, it isn't the clue we need for the answer, in this i will agree with you.

[Roselady3]

Ford released that his secret was:

They were using a 750cfm instead of a 830cfm.

That's a much bigger difference.

I don't think that A penski/ford team is going to release anything important willingly. This was leaked in order to send other teams off in a dfferent direction & the media off Ryans butt.

Thinner lines- Now that would be risky. One would think that this would be checked. Maybe that's the reason why his car went up in smake earlier in the season.

[muggle not]

Sorry, I just don't believe this "they are cheating" theory. There is no question in my mind that they have the best engineering group in Nascar and a driver that knows how to use what they have. No way would Rusty let the 12 get away with something that he isn't using.