Question about a possible penalty?

E

esorlxaw

Guest
hello, does anyone know the answer to this question?

During the Bristol race, they were showing how the crews were adjusting to the rear wing as far as who on the pit crew would make track bar adjustments. They showed Jeff Gordon's crew making two different pit stops and how they were making the adjustments. During one of the replays, the catch can man was using the wrench when I noticed the catch can was not in position and a bunch of fuel sprayed out the back end of the car.

My question is, should this be a penalty? Doesn't the catch can have to be inserted completely before they can begin fueling? I don't really care about it being Jeff Gordon, but I certainly wondered if this just went unnoticed and should have been a penalty or if it just plain wasn't a penalty.
 
it only must be in far enough to engage the flapper valve for the main fuel inlet.


I think.
 
The catch can has two purposes. One, and the most important, it opens the fuel cell to allow the free flow of fuel into the cell. If this isn't open, fuel has a hard time flowing and will stop well before the cell is full. As you can see, this is not something that a team wants. The second purpose is to catch any excess fuel from going to waste onto the ground. This isn't a priority for the teams, but is part of the system overall. A few races ago, one of the teams had a problem with the valve that the catch can opens and had to make repairs so the car could be totally fueled. There isn't a penalty for fuel overflowing, but more importantly, it's something that any team would not want a lot off for fear of fire. It's not unusual for a car to lose a gallon here and there through the valve, but any more than that and the teams will begin to worry.
 
buckaroo said:
The catch can has two purposes. One, and the most important, it opens the fuel cell to allow the free flow of fuel into the cell. If this isn't open, fuel has a hard time flowing and will stop well before the cell is full. As you can see, this is not something that a team wants. The second purpose is to catch any excess fuel from going to waste onto the ground. This isn't a priority for the teams, but is part of the system overall. A few races ago, one of the teams had a problem with the valve that the catch can opens and had to make repairs so the car could be totally fueled. There isn't a penalty for fuel overflowing, but more importantly, it's something that any team would not want a lot off for fear of fire. It's not unusual for a car to lose a gallon here and there through the valve, but any more than that and the teams will begin to worry.
Click to expand...

Also, the catch can is weighed after catching the fuel during a pit stop to more accurately compute fuel mileage/usage.
 
Wow, hey, thanks everybody. I just wasn't sure. I remembered that about the team having the problem getting the car full of fuel, was it Kenseth? Not quite sure. Anyway, I know the concern is the fire hazard and I remember some nasty pit road fires in the past few years. I just wasn't sure what the rule was. I just figured that it would be happening a lot with the COT because of the difficulty they seem to be having making that adjustment.
 
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