2024 Daytona 200 aka Big D

If you are talking 2022, he did, but they weren't 19 lap stints because there was a red flag. It was more like 1-1/2 stints.

 

The real question is why Bobby didn't punch his tank in on the cool down lap in true Endurance World Championship fashion..

 

I would assume it's probably something similar to WEC.

 

Yep, that is the one. I thought he pitted with 12 to go and did not take a tire so it was like 29 laps, but I am probably wrong.

 

I spent 25 years in the fuel tank industry mostly in product engineering related roles so fuel expansion is a big hurdle to protect for when you have limited packaging space and the oem wants every bit of fuel they can get out of a tank. For us the biggest headache was always how much fuel expansion to account for, keeping in mind the fuel tank in your vehicle needs to vent at all fuel levels. There are some standards for fuel temp as dispensed from consumer fuel pumps then whatever heat soak data is taken into account and assume you parked in Death Valley on a compound grade. 4% is the general rule of thumb by VOLUME.
So MotoAmerica does not allow you to chill the fuel before putting it in the tank, which will allow more volume but they use weight to determine capacity? I need to pull the rule book up but believe it’s 19l of volume, weight is only an accurate measurement knowing the exact specific gravity of the fuel (or fluid) you are using at a known temperature. If they said say at 60F you are limited to 20kg of fluid using standard fluid (with data sheet) that would make it a valid test. How they did it contradicts their own rules about chilling fuel (other advantages of that aside since we are talking about volume here) as it will allow more fluid capacity in the tank the cooler the fuel (it is not always a straight line correlation). If you stuff super chilled fuel into a motorcycle tank unless some anomaly happens by the time the fuel would have a rise in temp enough to create vapor lock issues you’d most likely have burned up enough that it’s a non factor.
Unless I missed something shouldn’t there be a test procedure in writing to validate fuel tank capacity? We aren’t talking 20% more fuel and I don’t know how much “weight” of fuel Fongs bike was over but sounds to me it’s within the range of even room temp vs fuel sitting on pit lane for 2 hours. When I get to the office I’ll look up the MA fuel should be able to get close on how much expansion volume over a given range is.
F1 uses weight and needs to be tested at a certain temp which is how they tie the teams to the air volume of the fuel cell, which is part of their overall rules for vehicle packaging.
Unless I’m missing something I don’t see how MA could have this much of an oversight. And not knowing how their rule is written if it’s “overall capacity of the fuel tank” because fuel tanks need some vapor space (race tanks can be creative with that) or usable fuel capacity. Dry breaks do a pretty damn good job filling right up so assuming a stuffed tank but also haven’t looked at their set up either.

F sakes. I have a ton of shit to do this morning now I’ll be looking into this shit.

Anyone know of this was a check others received or a protest because Fong didn’t run out of gas like other Suzukis?

 

Ok should have read this first. First of all what is “fully serviced”? Fong got a happy ending or something?
I’d imagine the spec fuel specific gravity is pretty right batch to batch. They are missing a massive piece of the puzzle because they are stating a specific gravity and trying to equate that to volume. There is a major missing piece there, temperature. This is very basic stuff in racing which is why a lot of forms of motor sports put limits on fuel temp when filling. Or the test to validate uses a standard temperature that is a constant so people can validate if their tank is legal or not. 2% makes this whole situation even worse just making expansion assumptions off the top of my head.
I’m hoping I find something in the rules that backs how MA validates capacity because if there isn’t any standard to use this is a huge f up on their part.
I’ve been prepared for trial 3x in cases of people suing OEM’s in vapor space cases, thankfully they all settled out of court. I know more about this shit than I care to but we are dealing with one type of “known” fuel here but also it doesn’t state if that Specific gravity is the nominal
Or what that exact amount was tested at before they put it in the tank (still doesn’t negate temp to volume but at least would take one factor out of that equation).
What a cluster.

 

Could this be remedied by removing any reference to fuel tank size but limiting the number of green flag laps between pit stops?

 

I think the overall idea is that the teams bring a bike built to the same spec.

 

And some of you want fuel capacity limits in WERA endurance... Good luck enforcing that!

 

Pit Lane Speed measured in KPH...that is Fkn DUMB.

One year I saw a team using a large freezer to chill their FULL QuickFill systems, that was great right up to the point the DryBreak Froze OPEN..spewing fuel everywhere.

The way to take the fuel density out of the equation for capacity measurements is to use Water.
Then make a rule against anything other than ordinary ICE for fuel cooling.

 

First thing that crossed my mind. I didn't post because I figured if no one had said it before me, I must be dumb and missing something obvious.

 

Can you imagine the pita it'd be to get all the water OUT of the foam in the tank after?

 

water would be a nightmare to try to get it all out of tank with foam. The specific gravity of the VP fuel would be a known quantity (usually on an MSDS page for the fuel, I was bored so looked it up, .738).

https://vpracingfuels.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/VP-MGP-R-reg.pdf

I am not a chemist, but how much of a difference would there be between say 65 and 95 degrees F? I would guess that most of the races would be between these temps ("room temperature" at the track in the tech area? more than likely between 70 and 95 would be my guess).

 

Same here. My first thought was "use water", my second thought was "it can't be that simple".

Using fuel there are way too many variables to make a
decision that can result in a DQ for a rider, IMHO.

 

I hadn't considered tanks with foam inside.
Maybe if the rules of specified that tanks would be measured with water, people would come up with a different product to put inside?

 

Such a shame what happened to our own Alex Coelho. I don't know who ran him over but he could have at least apologized afterwards...

 

Sportsmanship is ghey.

 

Minor details..water dries...

It does make me wonder where the extra volume on the tank in question came from.

 

Jorge Ehrenstein/ Honos

 

Apologize for what... you seem to apply the guy ran him over on purpose. Maybe the guy could inquire about Alex's condition...or maybe he did ?

I do hope Alex is on the mend to full recovery.