Greg, a person doesn't need to be suspicious of the honesty of the competitors to realize that a competition needs rules that make sense and that are clear to everyone, and that someone enforces those rules with an even hand.
If a race engine is allowed a maximum of 670cc (to use a familiar number
) and actually measures out to 670.01 cc, it gets excluded as ineligible. The officials don't ask the rider what s/he thinks is the actual displacement, they measure it themselves.
As mentioned previously at Bonneville where there are different classes with different specifications on the fuel, the standard fuel is controlled by the officials. This ensures that people are actually using the fuel they are supposed to be using and reduces the potential for fuel protests. If you show up with an empty tank and the officials fill it with the approved fuel then everyone is on the same page.
If Craig wants to run his event on an honor system with everyone doing their best to track their own fuel consumption that is his call. I suppose for such a small, informal and low-key event where people are just competing for bragging rights it might be difficult to justify going to greater lengths than that. As long as everyone is happy with that, then it is working. As soon as there's a tie and someone decides to get really serious about winning and how accurately fuel consumption was measured then the low-key system may not prevent some bad feelings. I've seen that happen with club racing where nothing more than a $5 trophy and ego are on the line. Once race faces are put on people are racing to win.
http://students.sae.org/cds/supermil...eage_rules.pdf
Look at the detail in article three specifying the fuel and fuel bottle. Note that
Quote:
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The competition organizer provides the competition fuel bottle for each fuel economy attempt.
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also:
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D1.7.1 Prior to the performance run, an official fuel tank (supplied by the competition organizers) will be filled, weighed and installed on the vehicle. A member of the vehicle team will perform the installation of the fuel bottle into the vehicle.
. . .
D1.8.1 Upon completion of the six lap performance run, 15.5 km (9.6 miles), the timers will record the elapsed time. The fuel bottle will be removed by a member of the vehicle team; . . . the member must de-pressurize any pressurized fuel systems. The removed fuel bottle will be weighed by the competition organizers.
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I'll grant that Supermilage is a different kind of event from Craig's "run what you brung and we sure are glad somebody made the effort to show up" events. Craig's events seem to me to be more about raising awareness than the competition. If the goal is to get entrants to show some significant improvement in fuel economy, then it probably isn't terribly important whether that significant improvement is 30% +/- 5% vs 30% +/- 0.05%.
cheers,
Michael