How about waiving the 10 gallon fuel stop?

[DanElam]

This is probably too late to be considered in the rules, but it could still be handled by supps for Thunderhill.

 

How about waiving the requirement for the 10 gallon fuel stop for the non-ES classes? The more frequent stops add a burden to the race teams by needing more pit support. I've put together some spreadsheet models and it apparently only really affects a very small handful of cars. Letting people fill up would probably create tighter racing by making track performance more important than pit performance. (It doesn't eliminate pit performance from determining a winner - it just keeps the cars closer.)

 

I know several of the regions do waive this and the result has been some pretty close racing. At VIR last year we had several cars within a couple of laps of the overall winner.

 

Some research on other race series couldn't find a single other race series that limits the amount of fuel for a pit stop. Some do make pit stops have a minimum length (like 5 minutes) in order to equalize pit crews and give them plenty of time to get everything done (safety argument as well). Some use formulas that require a minimum of X pit stops so that everyone has the same number.

 

Since none of us are touting our race cars as environmentally-friendly 50mpg cars, it would seem to be more useful for sponsors, racers, and NASA if the 10gal limit went away.

 

Just a thought. It's something that has stuck with me for a while and I thought I would bring it up now since we're looking at our season schedule and wondering whether we want to make the long drive from the east coast to run Thunderhill again.