The Notebook: Fuel Injected engines in NASCAR? Maybe so.....

  These NASCAR engines may be super-high-tech, but why are they still using carburetors? (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

  

   BROOKLYN, Mich.
  
   The Sunday NASCAR Notebook:

   Browsing the stock car racing garage in the hours before Sunday's Michigan 400, one of the hot topics was engines.

   -- Fuel injected engines in NASCAR?
   Perhaps in 2010?
   When NASCAR Sprint Cup director John Darby, a few weeks ago, raised the issue of 'fuel injected' racing engines in NASCAR, it raised eyebrows.
    NASCAR Cup engines are some of the most technically advanced engines in racing, except for the antique carburetors. Every other major form of racing, even ASA, uses fuel injected engines. And when was the last time anyone saw a carburetor atop a street car engine, after all.
    But NASCAR has long shied away from things electronically complicated like electronic fuel injection, for fear – with goodly reason – that the mechanical wizards on these racing teams might figure out a way to put some tricks in that electronic box.
   Now however NASCAR officials are raising the issue to team owners of fuel injected engines – possibly in the Truck series as soon as next season, according to one scenario – and asking how owners think NASCAR ought to police it.
   That's just one of numerous issues NASCAR and team owners discussed in a major session earlier this month, to consider where this sport ought to be five years from now.
   Why fuel injection now?
   One, to improve NASCAR's image and make the sport look more high-tech, and more up-to-date with what Detroit really puts out on the street for real people.
   Two, to use it as another item in a line of 'green' initiatives, again for public perception.
   And perhaps three, to entice other car makers – read Honda and Volkswagen – into this sport.
   "We think fuel injection is just the right way to go in NASCAR," Pat Suhy, Chevrolet's NASCAR field director, says.
   "And it wouldn't be that difficult. Every other top racing series uses fuel injection. We could put something together in about a week – depending on how simple or complex you wanted to do it – and then test it for two months or so, and be ready to go."
   However Ford's Greg Erwin is a little more skeptical about the fuel injection issue: "Fuel injection is not something you're going to be able to phase in over the winter. It's a little more complicated than that. It would be a pretty big undertaking.
   "Heck, it's taken all of us two years to figure out these cable-driven pump drives…and they're still breaking cables."
   And what about the idea of cutting these 900-horsepower NASCAR engines back to something more reasonable – for better racing – like 650 or 700 horsepower? Certainly the 210 mph corner speeds at this track and a California, and the follow-the-leader racing that tends to create, must have come up at that NASCAR-owners meeting?
   Apparently not.

 
  

  Reading sparkplugs (Photo: Autostock)
  

-- Ford's continued delay of the debut of its new NASCAR engines is drawing questions: Why the long delay of the motor that was unveiled in January.
   Reliability issues are a possibility. But no one is saying.
   The engine was to have run in Sunday's Michigan 400, but its debut has been delayed again. It was to have run at Daytona in July too, but didn't.
   Rivals say that the delay apparently means that Ford won't be giving the new motor in any of its championship contenders this fall. And they're calling Ford's delay "strange," since the company could easily put the new engine in the cars of men clearly not making the chase and not risk any title contenders.
   The man in charge of the project, Doug Yates, wasn't at the track over this weekend to discuss the issues.
   Jim Covey, a top General Motors/Chevrolet race engine designer, says he knows how difficult it can be to get a new NASCAR up and rolling.
   Covey won honors as 2007 race engine designer of the year for his work on the now-standard Chevrolet R07 engine, which is dominating the NASCAR tour this season. "One thing we at Chevrolet had going for us, in the development of the R07 was we had four different teams working on it, and the competition helped us," Covey said. "Now not every one of those teams got all it may have wanted in the new engine, but the competitive effort helped the overall project."
   That of course contrasts with what Dodge, Ford and Toyota have – Toyota designed its NASCAR engine in-house; Ford has combined its engine operations under one roof; Dodge's two main teams, with owners Roger Penske and Richard Petty, have not worked very closely at all on the new Dodge engine.
   Covey says that, while Chevy's R07 rollout went smoothly (of course the engine had been in development in various guises since 1999), the new Dodge R6 NASCAR engine has had its problems, "even though it's into its eighth month of the second year on the tour."
   Indeed, one of the tour's top Dodge drivers, Kasey Kahne, blew one of the new engines Friday. Kahne drives for Petty-Gillett, and that four-car team didn't get one of those new engines into one of its cars until May, and even now not all four teams have the new stuff.
    The Roger Penske team, on the other hand, got into the R6 engine last season, and now Kurt Busch is in the thick of the hunt for the title.
   Toyota's NASCAR debut also went smoothly. "But Toyota really had its back to the wall on that, because they didn't have any backup," Covey points out.
   Covey adds that Ford is under no particular pressure to get its new engine out, "because they are doing a very good job with the engine they have right now."
    Ford's Matt Kenseth won Daytona and California earlier this year, but the marque hasn't had a tour win since. So Ford went into Sunday's 400 winless in its last 20 starts.
    The most likely track now for Ford to debut the new engine would be Atlanta, a notorious engine-killer of a track.

   

   So just when will Jack Roush (L) and Doug Yates (R) debut this new Ford engine for racing boss Brian Wolfe? (C) (Photo: Autostock)
   

    -- NASCAR executives talked in May, when facing the Kentucky Speedway issue, about being very close to having the 2010 Cup schedule all ready to go. But now it's late August and still no 2010 Sprint Cup calendar.
   What's the holdup?
   Another question too – with Las Vegas Motor Speedway so clearly needing a second Cup weekend, and with this sport clearly needing the marketing punch of a place like Vegas, and with the city of Las Vegas itself needing NASCAR more than ever (to validate the marketing value of that town), why isn't track mega-owner Bruton Smith simply pulling the trigger and moving one of his less productive Cup race dates to Vegas for 2010?
   Perhaps there is an internal debate in Daytona over the shape of the 2010 10-race chase, with a look to maximize the national marketing potential of NASCAR's championship run.
   
   

    Las Vegas: Needs a second Cup date...and NASCAR needs a second Cup date in Vegas (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
   

-- Earlier this summer some NASCAR teams were raising questions about NASCAR's secret engine dyno tests of team engines after races.
   Too secret was the complaint.
   And it was a complaint here again Sunday from some Detroit car executives, who says they do not get any results sheets from NASCAR about its various engine tests. NASCAR does give each individual team its own results, but Detroit engineers say that NASCAR doesn't hand out any overall results sheet.
    NASCAR officials insist all Cup engines – Chevrolet, Toyota, Ford and Dodge – are fairly close in horsepower and torque.
    But some key Detroit figures point out there is no way to know for sure.
   The past many years NASCAR used a mobile chassis dyno at-track post-race engine tests at fairly regular intervals, with those results and comparisons available to the teams, to see how they stack up with the competition.
   However this season, in part because NASCAR couldn't come to financial terms with that dyno company, and in part because it makes more sense to run engine tests under more controlled conditions than a track infield, NASCAR is doing all its post-race engine comparison tests at its Concord, N.C., R&D shop. Now – particularly since Rick Hendrick's Chevys teams are dominating the sport this season – there is pressure on NASCAR to release that comparison data.

    -- Tickets sales for NASCAR events, no secret here, aren't selling as briskly as they once did.
   So there are a lot of promotions going on at various tracks to try to fill the seats.
    And apparently more than a few under-the-table promotions, to keep from aggravating fans who have already paid good money for good seats only to discover they're sitting next to somebody who got some cut-rate tickets.
    Now anyone who flies much knows quite well that the price of an airline ticket from Point A to Point B can vary significantly for seats on the very same flight, depending on when you buy it.
    But that concept – changing the fare in order to fill the plane – doesn't work that well in NASCAR, apparently. When fans find out they're sitting next to someone who paid a lot less for that seat, that ruffles feelings…to the point where those fans might simply stop buying tickets early – say, renewing each year, in the days after the race – and wait for last minute deals.
   Still perception – on TV – is part of NASCAR's problem right now. A camera showing a packed house is going to generate more sponsor enthusiasm than a camera showing empty seats.
   Why not simply give tickets away, if necessary, to fill the stands?
   Well, maybe some tracks are finding quiet ways to do that.
   But Michigan track president Roger Curtis says that because fans are very, very sensitive to the issue, he doesn't want to put new, cheaper ticket deals out for fans after first posting ticket prices.
   "There are some tracks out there, that as they get closer to their race, they cut the price of the tickets in order to fill their stands," Curtis says.
   "But we will not do that, not as long as I am president here."
   Some tracks – North Carolina Motor Speedway at Rockingham was one prime example – attract strong walk-up crowds, fans waiting till the last minute, maybe even that weekend, before deciding whether or not to attend.
   However that makes for a very iffy business model, if the track depends too much on ticket sales.
   So advanced ticket sales are very important in this sport.
   At the moment, though, with the economy as bad as it is, especially in places like nearby Detroit, ticket sales and renewals are tough.
   Of  course there is more to filling seats than just ticket prices and hotel rates.
   "Our red flag went off in 2005," Curtis says, pointing the start of the decline of auto sales and the ripple effect through the area economy.
   "And when I got here in 2006, one of the first things we talked about was (ticket) renewal rates. Part of the issue was traffic."
   Yes, certainly, because Michigan International Speedway traffic control had been notoriously poor over the years.
   Now traffic control may be improving….but what about the economy itself?
  
   

  The new Dodge R6 engine has been slow to speed, after more than a year and a half on the NASCAR tour (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)