Nascar Hypermiling

[FastPlastic]

Heard about this the other day. Seems Dale Earnhardt Jr used the pulse and glide technique to stretch his tank just enough to win the race.

http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/nascar...ory?id=3445188

[MetroMPG]

What an awesome find! Thanks, fastplastic.

Knowing the race was going to be extended beyond its scheduled 200 laps, Eury told Earnhardt to shut the engine off and coast whenever he could under the caution flag in a desperate effort to save more gas.

"I didn't know how much they were going to worry about it," Earnhardt said. "All the cars out there are gassing it, shutting 'em off, coasting about a half straightaway, cranking 'em back up, gas it, coast. Everybody's doing it.

"There's no rules specifically against that, but I was getting a little greedy ... I wanted to coast farther, so I'd gas it harder and coast past the pace car and just let him come on and catch back up, and that way I could keep my motor off longer."

[dcb]

""I didn't know how much they were going to worry about it," Earnhardt said. "All the cars out there are gassing it, shutting 'em off, coasting about a half straightaway, cranking 'em back up, gas it, coast. Everybody's doing it."

Freaking Awesome

[NoCO2]

Um...I think there is a rule about going past the pace car under caution...But non-the-less...GO DALE!

[ebacherville]

awsome EOCing even in race cars.. now if they would get boat tails and wheel skirts they would do alot better... lol.. wouldn't that be a site to see..

Really id love to see prius racing, where the best speed/MPG wins where the race could be won by a guy that doesn't cross the finish first .. Imagine the drafting, EOCing and DWLing going on Probably be pretty harry out there with all hypermilers trying for best mpg and speed.. thats kind of the way my commute is trying to stay with traffic yet get the best MPG.

Or even a hybrid nascar cars could run the entire race on less fuel... could make for a really interesting outcomes..the guy who saved a bit of fuel on every lap could win when the rest had to pit for fuel..

Electric nascar could be really interesting .. pit stops would consist of battery pack switches or hydrogen refuels for fuel cells.. aerodynamics could really be toyed with , limit the cars to the exact same motor.. to be fair.. like nascars restricts the throttle plates on the nascar cars.. Nascar restricts aerodynamics also currently.

Really that may move the industry along faster.. lots of things come from the racing scene into production vehicle's.

[Johnny Mullet]

Nascar Racing has nothing to do with saving fuel in any way at all.

[mattW]

A fuel economy race would be really cool actually, Just give everyone the same amount of fuel at the start and have whoever finishes first the winner, but make it so that the average MPG needed to get to the finish is pretty high, like 50-75mpg or so or you will conk out early. It would make it really strategic, like a cycling race... you could have breakaway groups and everything.

[Bror Jace]

I thought of this forum when i heard what he had done.

Of course, things like this are nothing new to racing. Lots of short-shifting, long stints with fewer pit stops, etc ... going on all the time.

I think it was Juan Pablo Montoya a couple years ago in Formula 1 that said his pit strategy got fouled up and to be able to make it home in the points, he stayed behind a different car (rather than pass him) and drafted the whole time to improve his mileage so he wouldn't have to pit.

[meemooer]

yea the draft helps for a few laps extra. But i'm pretty sure NASCAR still uses LEADED fuel. I think they do need to do something about how much gas they use for the weekend, especially since the teams don't even pay for it!!

[zjrog]

Its actually amazing what they can do when they try to save fuel. Granted these cars aren't the best FE platform. But there is a alot done to these cars for aero.