LRRS bans race fuel for 2007 season

And it seems this is the wave of the future.
John29 can fill you in on the particulars.
Spec fuel only now at Loudon.
Jerry Wood and John Ulrich deserve a round of applause.

 

OK as long as its not six dollar a gallon Sunoco likes MotoST rules require.

 

They're going with the Sunoco already sold at the track, and a yet-to-be-named approved unleaded fuel from a local gas station. Two strokes are exempt from the unleaded rule.

 

All I did was answer a few questions when Eric Wood called me and asked me about my personal experience with spec fuel (with Moto-ST) and with rocket fuel (at AMA Pro races). I don't control what LRRS does. So if you feel the need to give anybody credit (or discredit) for this, give it to Jerry and Eric Wood.

 

What about bikes that require it? Could be wrong but don't true Superbikes require it to prevent themselves from going kaboom?

 

I dont think true superbikes will go kaboom, but some bikes will require re-mapping

 

Just going by Jerry's announcement that he consulted with you on this and you also disliked the toxic fuels out there now. From the cornerworker's perspective, this is a good thing as concerns both exhaust fumes and dealing with leaking tanks/hoses and fuel on the track.

 

Fuel Rule

This discussion has been going on for a while, and when it was looked at again during the 2007 LRRS rules meeting the positives seemed to far outweigh any negatives. John Ulrich talked about this in a post a while back when discussing how to fix roadracing in the United States, and I whole-heartedly agreed with his idea on race fuel. Although John didn't have any involvement in the LRRS decision, when asked what my opinion was on this subject I expressed to both the officials and LRRS racers that I was behind this initiative and cited John's article as a means of support.

The details of how this is rule is carried out will be fine tuned as this season progresses, but I personally feel that having an inexpensive spec fuel should be a standard the all race organizations adopt. As more toxic & expensive fuels are developed, everyone is forced to spend more and more money in order to be competitive. The racing does not improve, the racers become poorer and the fuel companies get richer. These expensive fuels not only have significant (negative) monetary impact each weekend, but also have vapors that are clearly toxic to breate - and also regularly damage motors when not completely flushed out (at minimum) every race weekend.

I again commend the officials at LRRS for their decision, and hope that all racing organizations in the US (the AMA certainly included) are encouraged to follow this trend and mandate that their racers use a safer, less expensive, less toxic fuel when participating in their series.

I do not read or post on the message boards but once of twice a year, but I thought this subject to be worthy of all of our time. Thanks for the opportunity to chime in on this topic.

Eric Wood

 

If this is going to be the quality of your posts, then you need to read this board and post on it a heck of a lot more.

 

Thank you Eric and all the LRRS Officials. Big thumbs up to this new rule

 

Superstock only right.......?

The never ending drive to keep people from spending money they will spend anyway.

I can't wait for the next round of superstock wheelchair racing. Of course they have outlawed Ceramic bearings to keep the cost down.

 

What's Superstock?

This will apply to all four strokes.

 

Easy to do when you race one track over and over and over. Not so easy with a real series that changes venues. I love the idea, provided the track sells the fuel at market prices. If they start to creep up though, look for a rat.

 

So a one-venue series isn't really a series?

 

I sort of like this idea and since I'm on the board of directors for the AFM, there's a good chance this topic will come up at our next meeting. In fact, I think it might even make sense to ban all race fuels and just allow pump gas. The question I have is regarding enforcement. JU, any ideas how we could do that? Is there a place where we could send fuel samples? Or does anyone make a fairly simple kit that we could have at the track?? Rules don't have any teeth if you can't enforce them...

 

That came off wrong, sorry. I mean a traveling series versus a one venue series. Respect.:up:

 

Just tossing out thoughts: since there will be no sponsorship for "pump gas", who will pay for the testing of the fuel. AFM and AMA might have the spare budget to have testing all the time, either every bike or top 5

But I doubt club level racing would/could do testing all the time. Maybe test only bikes that are protested or show a definite reduction of lap times in a given class.