Paying off at the pump: Saving fuel a winning play in NASCAR

Averaging about 4.5 miles per gallon, no one touts NASCAR's Sprint Cup cars as eco-friendly.
But the last two weeks it's been the most fuel-efficient, not necessarily the swiftest, who have glided into victory lane.

Fuel strategy figures to play a major role this week as well when Cup drivers tackle a very different kind of track, the twisting road course at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif.

MARTIN WINS: Veteran has enough left in the tank
"We thought we were fine on fuel," said Jimmie Johnson, who seemed on his way to winning Sunday's LifeLock 400 at Michigan International Speedway until he ran out of gas heading into the final lap. "Evidentially, we used a lot more gas than we thought trying to find a way to pass the 5 car (Mark Martin) and the 16 (Greg Biffle)."

Seconds after Johnson began sputtering, Biffle also ran out of fuel, leaving Martin, who had been running conservatively in third, with the ability to swoop in for the win.

"Everything we do at the shop is a balancing act between power and fuel mileage," says Martin's crew chief Alan Gustafson.

A week earlier, at Pocono Raceway, Tony Stewart coaxed enough mileage from his Chevrolet to hold off Carl Edwards. This week at Infineon, teams may sacrifice power for economy by using a smaller carburetor. But all will attempt to script the 110-lap, 219-mile race by making two keenly-timed pit stops.

"Track position is so important," says Gustafson. "You want to be able to pit as early as possible and come out with fresh tires and a full tank without going a lap down. Then you hope a caution comes out. Now, you don't have to pit. You stay out and you're the leader."

Fuel conservation paid off for Juan Pablo Montoya when he posted his only Cup victory at Infineon in 2007 and for Kyle Busch and David Gilliland, who pitted early and finished 1-2 last year despite starting 30th and 31st.

For NASCAR teams, saving fuel begins in the shop and extends throughout race day.

"What you're really looking for is range," says Greg Erwin, crew chief for Biffle. "Fuel efficiency is part of the picture, but the real question is how far can your car go on one fill-up."

Here are some of the techniques:

• At the shop: "A lot of it is about carburetion and minimizing drag on rotating components," Erwin says.

Mark McArdle, competition director for Richard Petty Motorsports, says "managing carburetion is the whole key to being able to balance fuel economy and power."

Petty's Dodges run an approximate 14-1 ratio: 14 parts air for every part of fuel. "You can run leaner settings, up to about 15-1," he says. "Having the car really lean — meaning more oxygen than fuel, will help with the mileage," Gustafson says. "The other side is that if you run a car too lean, you'll blow it up. It will burn a piston or burn a valve."

NASCAR authorizes two sizes of Holley four-barrel carburetors. On the road course at Infineon Raceway this week, some teams will opt to qualify with the larger carb, then switch to the more fuel-friendly version in the race.

Team's engine tuners adjust carburetors in numerous ways. Among them: turning a screw to adjust the idle, switching jet and accelerator pump sizes and adjusting the opening and closing of the power valve based on spring tension.

Erwin says teams monitor spark plugs and their changing color to determine fuel efficiency within each cylinder. "Then we know to fatten it up or lean it out," Erwin says.

Teams will position the fuel pick-up tube within the fuel cell based on the track. Unlike a typical oval where teams often opt to position the pickup in the right corner of the tank, at Infineon, where cars turn left and right, teams will opt for a center pickup or place a pickup line in each corner.

Gustafson says a car that handles well will be most efficient. "A car that carries more corner speed will require less fuel to accelerate. If a car drives well, you can back off the throttle early and use less brake. A car that rolls faster through the center of a corner is a car that's handling better. That equates to better fuel mileage."

Lubrication also comes into play.

"The less friction, the more efficient the engine is — the less fuel it's going to burn and the faster it's going to go," Gustafson says. "The thinner you can make (engine oil) the better. Think about pouring molasses in there. That would be really inefficient. But if the oil is too thin, it won't cool or lubricate correctly.

"One area where we've made the biggest gains is having oil where you want it and not where you don't. You don't want the crankshaft running in a pool of oil. That's creating friction. You want it oiling your connecting rods and main journals."

• In the pits: "If NASCAR gives you a maximum of 18 gallons in your fuel cell, you'd better make sure you put in 18, not 17.9," Erwin says. "If the maximum length of your fuel line is 62 inches, make sure yours is not 61.5."

It's up to the gas man to make sure he gets the tank full.

Gustafson notes the importance of elminating fuel bubbles within the fuel cell. "The key is to get as much fuel in as you can and make sure you get all the air out of the system," he says. "Sometimes we have an issue on two-tire stops. That can make it tougher to get it full because the right side of the car is jacked up. It creates a natural air pocket. That's why even when the car is dropped you'll see the gas man still plugged in, walking with the car as it leaves (the pits)."

Sometimes the gas man will switch to a second fill can before his first can is empty because gas from from the more full can will flow more freely.

• Behind the wheel: Johnson says you can't wait until the last minute to conserve. "You have to really commit to saving fuel at the start of a run, the minute you leave the pit.

"When you're not being pursued or needing to push it is one thing. you can save fuel. You can let off (the throttle) early, not go to wide-open as early. You can try to run half-throttle on the straightaways. But so much depends on the pressure people are putitng on you. At Michigan, chasing (Biffle) and trying to get by (Martin) I was searching for multiple lines, high and low. I used up a lot more gas … and ran out."

Speed plays a major role. Crew chiefs will give drivers optimum RPMs they want them to run. During cautions, drivers will actually shut their engine and coast. Things are a bit trickier under green.

"A driver can back off the throttle earlier or pick up the throttle later," Gustafson says. "Basically, you want the least amount of time with it wide open."

"Roll out of the throttle and let the car coast," TNT analyst Larry McReynolds says. "Pick up the throttle a little later off the corner. Do that at both ends of an oval track and over 40 laps, you've saved a fair amount of fuel. I've got to believe that's what Mark Martin did."

Q & A With NASCAR Driver Marcos Ambrose

QUESTION: It must have been a bit of a whirlwind over the past three years, but it’s obviously nice to spend some time at home here in Tasmania?

MARCOS AMBROSE: Thanks for having me. It’s been a whirlwind this year. I feel like I’m always fighting time and sleep. It’s nice to get away from the NASCAR circuit for a while, come home and spend time with my family and friends. It’s going to be great and I’m really going to use this time to reinvent myself.

I feel like I had my butt handed to me this year in the US, I finally got in some competitive equipment, got into that Cup racing game and realised that if I’m going to contend, I’ve really got to go to another level.

So I’m looking forward to this time off to really refocus my body and my mind for the 2009 season. It’s really going to be my make or break year, 2009, to make it stick. I’ve got in some quality gear for the first time over there. I’ve paid my dues and I have enough experience. I’ve had over 100 starts now so there are no excuses left really, I’ve got to get it done.

I’m looking forward to that challenge. Everything is poised to be something special. All I’ve asked of myself and the people that have worked with me over there is to give me the opportunity to prove or disprove whether I’ve got it and whether I can do it.

The 11 races I’ve done at the Cup level have been an eye opener for me. I’ve realised that to last five hours out there is not an easy thing. The races are long, they’re aggressive. The drivers are as good and competitive as I’ve seen anywhere and the depth of talent is amazing. There are 43 (drivers) that start every week and there are about 42 and a half of them that are really, really good. Sometimes I feel like I’m the point five (0.5) that’s missing (laughs).

So, that’s really where I’m at and I’m looking forward to the break. Looking forward to being home in Tasmania for a while and looking forward even more to getting back and really getting into it.

Q: You only finished the season last week. You must feel like you need a break, but does the racer inside you really want to get back out there?

Yeah, I really need a break now, you know, it’s been a long year. Someone said to me earlier that I’ve basically done three seasons of V8 Supercars in 10 months. And that’s really what it feels like. I feel tired, I feel worn out, I feel like I’ve had enough for a while. The double race formats have been difficult for me, the travel between the tracks, because I’m racing against guys … I call it the two-tenths rule. I’m two tenths of a second a lap away from flying my own jet and unfortunately I’m flying around commercial doing it the hard way.

So it’s a fine line between doing it right and not doing it right and wasting money and time, so I’m really keen on doing it the way it needs to be done and competing at the very top level with those guys and hopefully this break can give me the chance to really refocus and have a good think about what I need to do to be successful and be better.

Q: In terms of next season you will be doing the full Sprint Cup program. Is it just the Cup for you or will there be some other racing?

MA: That’s a good point. Right now we’ve got the full NASCAR Sprint Cup Series locked away. The only drawback is the owner’s points situation. For those that don’t understand the rules, the top 35 teams are guaranteed a start each week, the teams below that have to qualify into the race on speed. Quite often you have 50 – 52 cars all trying to get a spot, but you’re all trying for the spots from 36th through to 50th, or however many cars are there. So it’s not uncommon to qualify around 25th, but go home because you are not in the front of that group, so it’s really a burden on everybody.

We don’t want to be in that position if we can avoid it. The team that I jumped in with for the last four races was 36th in owners points. We got them back into the top 35 then fell out in the last race to be back out of points. With the restructuring of some race teams and the economic crisis over there it looks like there are some guys in front of us that are going to drop back, so we should be locked in for the entire series.

If not, we have to qualify in on our speed for the first five races, including the Daytona 500, which is not easy. So we’re going to do the whole series next year, to answer your question. We are doing the whole Sprint Cup series, we’ll be doing every race but there may be some races where we could potentially miss out if we don’t qualify in on speed.

In the Nationwide Series, I’m going to do the road course races for sure. There’s plenty of demand for me out there to do those. And we’ll probably fill in 15 to 20 races on the Nationwide side for the sponsors to make it work.

My team is trying to bring through the next generation of driver. They brought me through on a three-year plan, they’re bringing the next young guy through and to make the sponsorship work I’m going to do some races for them. I wouldn’t want to do more than 15 to 20, and that’s probably what the number will be.

Q: It’s still a huge commitment, whichever way you look at it.

MA: It’s not as much as doing the full schedule, because you don’t have the fly-in races. Quite often you will run both cars in different states, so between practice sessions you will be flying in on helicopter and flying from airport to airport to make it all work. And that’s no good on the sponsors, on the drivers or anybody.

So we’re not going to do that. We’re going to focus on the Cup series but the Nationwide Series racing is fun if you do it the right way and it can help your Cup program too.

The number one focus for us is the Cup Series. That’s where the money is, that’s where the sponsors are and that’s where the crowd is, so that’s the number one goal.

Q: You raced in a lot of big races this year, including the Brickyard 400. That was quite a difficult race for everybody with the tyre situation. There was also the win and the third at Watkins Glen and the debut at Sonoma. You’ve also raced at Daytona, but to actually get the chance to race in the Daytona 500, one of the most famous races anywhere in the world, the opening race of 2009, which must be huge.

MA: Yeah, that Indianapolis track is pretty intimidating. I don’t think I’ve been to many places where I felt very anxious to get going. Unfortunately in practice we blew a motor on the second lap, so I had two laps of practice before qualifying and I was very under-prepared for the start of that race.

Huge crowd, huge prizemoney, huge responsibility and a very, very daunting track. The speeds are high in NASCAR every week, but when you tip off into Turn One there at Indianapolis it really feels fast.

It was an exciting weekend for me and it was a weekend where I really feel I broke out of the mould and felt like I had the goods to do it at the Cup level, because we qualified in on our speed and had a good day. So, there are fond memories of that place, but every race track is big and fast.

Every race is big, with big prizemoney, so there’s not one week that really stands out to me that’s say, any more special than the others or any more demanding. It’s really just a constant grind of performance requirements. I mean, you need to deliver every single weekend.

Q: Next year, to go to Daytona for the big one on the Sunday. What’s that going to be like?

MA: I’m already pretty nervous about Daytona. You know, it’s a really tough race track. They run a restrictor plate there, so the cars are always really close. You’ve got to run those cars really loose, where the rear end moves around a lot. NASCARs inherently handle badly. They don’t turn well and they don’t handle the speeds well, so you’ve got to set them up so they’re always sliding so you don’t overload the tyres. Daytona is probably the meanest and ‘baddest’ of all the race tracks as far as having to run the car loose with guys all around you in the pack.

I’m anxious about it. I’m really keen to be locked into that race, if the stars align and luck’s on our side I won’t have to qualify in on speed. Because we have to race our way in on that race track. They have what they call the Gatorade Duels where you have to race your way in through a heat race, the week before the big one, to get in. And I’m not looking forward to doing that.

But it’s what I do. I’ve got to handle the pressure of racing over there. It is difficult to keep calm under that much pressure but it’s what I do. So I’m looking forward to every race, but I’m a little anxious about the first one.

Q: Can you describe the team situation for next year, with JTG Daugherty Racing taking on a different form?

Yeah, I’ve driven for four teams all up this year, across the two series. So I’ve got a lot of seats out there and a lot of steering wheels that I’ve been driving and using. And that’s been difficult to adapt.

The team that has driven everything has been JTG Daugherty Racing. They have a marketing company that draws in the money to make it work and they on-sell that to race teams with a driver attached, which is me, by twisting their arm enough to make me the driver.

It all revolves around that one group and it’s a family called Tad and Jodi Geschickter, a husband and wife team, and their marketing crew that are really the brainchilds of all of that.

Originally they merged with Wood Brothers, then they separated, it didn’t work out, and they had a sponsorship that crossed over with Wood Brothers so I drove the #21 a few times this year and then they (JTG) had the money together to go Cup racing. It’s a lot of money to run a Cup program. It costs about $15 to $20 million to run a car – and that’s US dollars.

With the exchange rate now, it’s good for me when I come home, but not good for you guys coming over to the States to see a NASCAR race.

Basically, we didn’t have the money to ‘gear up’ to run a Cup program. We had the money to run but we didn’t really have the money to put everything together, to buy cars, transporters, people, infrastructure, testing time and all of that. So the smartest thing to do was to package that up and then try and deliver that to another team that was already running and that’s how the Michael Waltrip Racing link worked for us.

It’s a great fit. They are a team that is really on the up. They’ve got a fleet of Toyotas and they are spending good money and they have done already. They’ve got over 30 full-time engineers on an engineering program that is first class. They’ve got good facilities and basically we are going to plug ourselves in there with myself and the sponsorship and a few key guys and hopefully make it work.

I feel like that’s what I needed to do to put myself in quality machinery, to give myself a chance and for the team to give themselves a chance to really deliver on what they have promised their sponsors. I think it’s going to work out well, but time will tell how well it does work. I might be home next year driving with you guys again or I could be there for another 10 years. It just depends what happens (laughs).

Q: NASCAR has announced that they are cutting right back on testing for next season. How does that effect your situation heading into your first full year in Cup?

MA: I’m fortunate enough that I’ve done enough races that I know what I really need to do and should do to make it work. It’s not guaranteed and testing would be nice for everybody, but I think it’s a smart thing for the series to do.

It’s smart for the series. It’s not hard to spend millions of dollars to go testing. I mean, the manufacturers were renting race tracks … Ford, for instance, rented Kentucky Speedway every Tuesday of every week of the year for the last five years. You just turned up and it might be 15 grand a day to rent that track for the Ford teams. It’s a crazy expense.

So I think NASCAR really want to stamp down on the testing and try and keep the teams viable to run quality races, because at the end of the day NASCAR just wants a good race. They want to put on a good show and they want teams to have enough money to do that. I think it’s smart for them.

As a rookie coming into the sport on the Cup side, it would be nice to be at the top of the pile and have a lot of testing, but unfortunately I missed it by a year. But that’s the way it goes.

Q: It’s been a while since you saw a V8 Supercar round in person. It must be nice to come back because you still have a lot of friends in this series?

MA: There are a lot of friends here and I felt like I left on fairly good terms when I did go. So I’ll walk around here and see some cars and drivers and watch a bit of the action. It’s nice to see the sport still flourishing. It’s a great series for our population and the money that’s available to put on good racing. I think the series does a nice job and I think it’s healthy, like it was when I left.

When I left in 2005 the sport was in good shape and it still looks like it’s in good shape and they’ve got vision to go forward and make it even better. So it’s great to be here and I’m going to enjoy it. I don’t get to see much racing apart from NASCAR these days. I’m either watching old races to get ready for what is coming up for me or I’m watching my own races to see what I did wrong.

But I’ll check out the action and hopefully (Mark) Winterbottom and (Jamie) Whincup [leading Ford drivers] can get it done. It’s really a tough series right now and I think Jamie Whincup in particular has done a really good job over the last couple of years.

Q: Can you explain how you ended up racing a Camry?

MA: Well, it’s a good point and it’s probably something we need to address. It’s been a privilege to drive with Ford all these years, pretty much my entire career, or my professional career at least, I’ve been driving in Fords.

Unfortunately, Ford just didn’t have the opportunity for me to get to the Cup level like we needed to do. It wasn’t any goal to drive a Toyota but it was the best opportunity I had over there and I feel like it’s a progression. I feel like you need to keep moving forward in life and it’s clear that Toyota are winning in the showroom and on the race track and in NASCAR they had the most success and they’ve got a lot of progression.

So I looked at the opportunities and my hands were tied to a certain extent. You’ve got the sponsors and the team and myself and we’re all making this decision together. It was the best opportunity on the table at the time to do what I needed to do to get the job done over there in America.

I hope to drive Fords again. It’s not like I’ve turned my back on the Ford family. It’s just that unfortunately there wasn’t an opportunity for me at the Cup level of the same magnitude as the deal I have in place right now.

At the same time I’m looking forward to the future. I’m going to the second stage of my career here and it’s great to have the opportunity to go wherever I need to go, to do whatever I need to do to be the best driver and get in the best equipment that I can.