Quote:
Originally Posted by euromodder
The easiest part would be to fuel, fully charge and start the cars in the paddock area, and have them return there to be refueled and fully recharged.
The recharging can be measured.
If you have 1 person doing all fill-ups, you'll get pretty consistent readings.
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Easier said than done. The Watkins Glen track only offers super-premium racing fuel (100 octane?? I can't recall, sorry), and we didn't have the use of those pumps anyway.
In 2010 we fueled up in town and then drove uphill to the starting point - not really an ideal setup. Fueled up again afterwards for measurement purposes. Some cars seemed to have unrealistic results, and even the drivers said so.
The organizers have considered and tested various methods over the years. Have had good results using built in computers on cars that have them. Measuring fuel use on cars without fuel computers has been a challenge but I think they're gradually making progress.
This year they weighed the cars before and after the run but at least in some cases, the accuracy and precision weren't up to what was needed to accurately compute fuel consumption. I think there's potential for improving the accuracy of that method. The organizers are definitely interested in better measurement for next year.