UPDATE:

NASCAR officials said Friday morning that water contamination that plagued several cars in last week’s Pep Boys Auto 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway has been traced to a portable fuel dispenser. The cars of #11-Denny Hamlin, #22-Dave Blaney and #16-Greg Biffle were among those to suffer contamination from water in the fuel. Hamlin’s car stalled on a late-race restart that resulted in Martin Truex, Jr., who led the most laps in the race, crashing into Hamlin and out of contention.

“Last week’s issue with water in fuel during the Nextel Cup race has been investigated and pinpointed by NASCAR and Sunoco,” said NASCAR spokesman Kerry Tharp. “Our investigation confirms that the fuel was on spec and that the dispensers at Sunoco”s Atlanta track fueling station functioned correctly and was not the source of the contamination. “A failure did occur in a piece of portable dispensing equipment that is sometimes used to supplement the permanent pumps on busy race days. This failure allowed a small amount of water to be dispensed. Portable equipment has been used for many years without problem, and, in fact, this equipment functioned properly during the Craftsman race at Atlanta right before the Nextel Cup race.”

According to Tharp, the offending device has been fixed. “Equipment modifications have been made to ensure that this will not happen in the future,” he said. “The portable equipment is not required for the fueling operation at Texas International Speedway this weekend and will not be used.”

SPEEDTv.com

———————————————————-

NASCAR and Sunoco have launched investigations into how water got into the racing fuel during last Sunday’s race at the Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Pole winner Greg Biffle was the first to notice his car wasn’t running right and the problems lasted throughout the race.

Denny Hamlin led with seven laps to go during a restart, but his Chevrolet chugged to a stop as the green flag waved. His team blamed the problem on water.

NASCAR also found water in the gas tank of race winner Jimmie Johnson, said Nextel Cup competition director John Darby. He said several cars reported problems - some, like Johnson, weren’t severe, others, like Hamlin, were.

“The presence of the water obviously is a great concern, at any level, not only for NASCAR but for Sunoco as well,” Darby said.

Darby said the water was “brownish,” leading them to believe it may have come from a defective pipe or pump in Sunoco’s delivery system. The sanctioning body sent a bulletin to every Nextel Cup and Craftsman Truck series team that raced at Atlanta to have them check for water.

Sabotage isn’t being considered, Darby said.

Not only did Johnson, Biffle and Hamlin have water in their fuel, so did Dave Blaney, Clint Bowyer, Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton, Ryan Newman, Kurt Busch, Juan Pablo Montoya, Reed Sorenson, David Stremme, Scott Riggs, Kasey Kahne and Elliott Sadler.

savannahnow.com

Bookmark to: