Fuel mileage often plays a major role at the wide-open 2-mile oval.
By BRANT JAMES, Times Staff Writer
Published September 4, 2005
The cryptic message will squawk over a driver's team radio with a few laps remaining.
"Conserve fuel. It's close."
A crew chief will relay this message because his driver is in position to win the Nextel Cup race tonight at California Speedway, or at least to squirrel valuable points in the next-to-last race before the Chase for the Championship begins.
A driver concentrating on finishing strongly now has to balance fuel economy - an unnatural notion - with the desire to mash the pedal. Save gas, but save track position. The 2-mile expanse and sweeping 14-degree banks of California Speedway make the proposition even tougher.
"All you can do is make sure you're rolling out of the gas early and putting yourself in a position to not use a lot of brake," said Jimmie Johnson, who enters tonight's race second in driver points, 11 ahead of Greg Biffle. "The corners are very inviting. You want to drive in real deep and use some brake. If you drive in easy enough where you can coast the turn and not use the brake, you can save some fuel there.
"But the track is so big and so fast that the way you run fast and competitive is having the gas pedal down, and down as early as possible. So it's a tough place to save fuel."
Fontana's brief NASCAR history underscores the need to balance. There have been fewer than 36 caution laps in seven of 10 Nextel Cup races there. Long green-flag runs bring unorthodox strategies to conserve fuel, minimize stops and maintain track position.
And it still gets dicey at the end. In 1997, Jeff Gordon won the inaugural race on vapors - running the last 55 laps on one stop - when Mark Martin ran out of gas with 10 laps remaining.
Dover, New Hampshire and Kansas City, all fuel mileage tracks, make up 30 percent of the Chase.
The generally accepted rule is NASCAR race cars get about 4.3 miles per gallon, varying by track, and double under caution. That's acceptable math on the pit box but fuzzy for science.
"I'm amazed in a way they do as well as they do," said Dr. Bob Hoekstra, an associate professor of industrial engineering at Central Florida, whose master's program in High Performance Engine Optimization has collaborated with Dodge Motorsports.
A driver's foot is the best economizer if it stays steady while "rolling out" or "lifting off" in turns. Though Hoekstra is skeptical, many drivers believe they have the dexterity to manipulate the butterflies that manage airflow into their four-barreled carburetors, which controls the air-fuel mixture entering the engine.
Gas gauges are among many indicators common in passenger cars but not allowed by NASCAR, so teams must assess their fuel situation with spread sheets or computers. Teams learn their fuel mileage during tests or practice by packing the car with fuel and driving until the 22-gallon cell is empty. Computer programs can allow for variables such as handling. Spillage is weighed after pit stops to get an even better idea of how much fuel went into the cell.
"During the race their first fuel stop is probably the most critical," Hoekstra said. "Because there they can really nail down what's happening on that particular day, given the jetting they have on the carburetor and so forth and calculate it from there. They're pretty good at it, but every once in a while, they'll miss by a half lap or a lap."
Jeremy Mayfield won Aug. 21 at Michigan by running the last 52 laps without a stop, a feat crew chief Slugger Labbe knew was possible because they had done so in a test.
His calculations needed to be exact. The car gives a driver scant indication when it is almost dry, Johnson said, because of improvements in fuel-cell pick-up systems.
"When it runs out, you may have a stutter that will last three seconds and then it's empty," said Johnson, who earned his first Nextel Cup win at Fontana in 2002 and has finished second twice there, including this spring. "When it's over, it's over."
That tends to make a driver's mind play tricks.
"You hear stuff at the end of the race when you're leading and you're going to have a chance to win," said Mayfield, who solidified his Chase berth with his first win of the season.
Johnson said he has run out of fuel just once and didn't much care for the feeling. With Biffle close, he does not expect crew chief Chad Knaus to, as Hoekstra puts it, "find out who's a gambler and who's not and who can outguess the system better."
"I lost a lot more in the big picture running out of gas and going down a couple laps," said Johnson, who finished second last year when three of the top five drivers ran out of fuel. "Coming down pit road without your tachometer, you have a pit road speeding violation, so I think it's a worse feeling to run out then play it conservative."
