Fuel/gas plea

[ste]

Rocket Fuel? Are you kidding? Does it come from ACME and say "Rocket Fuel" on the side? I guess I'm naive, but I've never even heard of this.

At $40-50 a gallon (gathered from reading here) you can't be serious. I thought people who sent their money in to those TV preachers were wasting it........

I'll be running vintage orange Titan #16 this weekend at the KIC and at #61 at the 40th.

Regular old race gas for me.

Steve Grundahl

[Michael Rand]

Good for you Steve, the great majority will be using gas of one kind or another, Cam 2 or avgas or whatever.
But the way the SCCA administers fuel there are several special blends that do, with proper tuning and setup, produce power, at the price of $50/gallon and up.
When one or two entrants in a competitive class run it then more feel the need as well and it snowballs out of control.
It is widely known that SCCA will rewrite the gas rules effective 1-1-10 and these fuels, what we are referring to as Rocket Fuel [RF] will no longer be legal. For which everyone will be happy, except maybe the producers of said RF.
So the debate rages and the peer pressure will rise in an attempt to contain it.

[Mike Allison]

...that you can buy an awful lotta trophies for the $350.00 it takes to fill a FF with Rocket Fuel. Guys, run AVGas or Pump Fuel and use the money you save to buy a BIG trophy that says "I WON".

Plain old Gas in the Zink.

See you soon if I can get my shift linkage fixed.

Mike

[Daryl DeArman]

Following that logic you could just stay home and buy and even bigger trophy with all the money you save.

I imagine the front runners will consume at least 3x the $ amount in tires vs. fuel....is that not a bigger cost concern? Highly consumable, expensive bits that result in a lap time reduction. Bits you wouldn't need if everybody agreed not to use them.

[Mike Allison]

Daryl, You might note in another thread, my car is for sale after this event. So thats exactly what I'm going to do. Retire
My trophy will read "Been There, Done That."
44 Years is enough. Loved every bit of it.

Mike

[stonebridge20]

The deal for Team Treadway is:

We will have plenty of "RF" in the trailer. It will stay in the trailer until we smell "RF" fumes in the air from someone else. It will then be put in one or both cars. We would MUCH rather keep the $hit in the trailer and NOT in either the DB6 or RF81.

[Michael Rand]

BRAVO Treadway/Agnif !!!!!!!!!!

[crossle27]

I just posted on the wrong thread, so I will repeat myself here.
I have recently heard that a number of front running CF's will be running happy fuel at the 40th. Seems that if one guy does it the rest will follow, which is total BS. Do we report the cars with the toxins blowing in our faces, or just point to an official and a car while gasping for air?
This really needs to be controlled somehow. We'll be driving from Seattle for this event, and spending a lot of $$ in the process. I personally won't be running at the front no matter what, but this issue will affect those drivers who could possibly win without the guys who out dollar everyone else with their toxic mix. The word sportsmanship comes to mind...

[lc3]

I really have no desire to run the fuel. I am trying to decide how prepared I need to be however. I am leaning toward the Tredway example. I would prefer if we did something really productive at one of the drivers meetings and voted to use track fuel, good practice for the runoffs and use the money we all save to have a better time at Siebkens.

Lewis Cooper III

[mike g.]

Lewis,

Do you have your car prepped to run the laughing gas? I guess I am asking, how many folks run this stuff normally?

It isnt something you can just put in and run... I imagine it would be difficult even to put it in and advance timing 4 or 5 degrees...

[Frank Del Vecchio]

Guys - with field about 100 cars - get realistic. Maybe 10 of the front runners will go to any lenght to win their class. The rest of us have to get through some very close - nose to tail/side by side racing without having to run the entire race under yellow.

Save your bucks - this is the fun one.

[Michael Rand]

Once again, and not for the last time, peer pressure is the best deterant, so naming names and pointing fingers requires that all stand up and grow a set.
We can vote and agree to "gentlemens agreements" but come Sunday there is going to be a minority who want that unfair advantage, legal or not. As a group maybe we can shame those into winning, or losing, on a level playing field.

[formulasuper]

Guys - with field about 100 cars - get realistic. Maybe 10 of the front runners will go to any lenght to win their class. The rest of us have to get through some very close - nose to tail/side by side racing without having to run the entire race under yellow.

Save your bucks - this is the fun one.

I agree with Frank, with fields this size the chances for yellow flags are pretty great. Unless extra caution is used by all it will become the FF 40th year parades.

[Rodney Jessen]

Today would probably be the last day to order C 44 and have it shipped to the track on time. In reading the threads posted on this forum I detect some disgust to the idea of running $50 a gallon fuel in a class like CF which is supposed to provide cheep racing. And we are also in quite a nasty nationwide recession if I had any sense (or could get my fees back) maybe I shouldn't be going.

In reading the threads and being big time short on cash I am not bringing any RF I believe that the rocket fuel will be run by others but do not want that stigma attached to me. But for the rest of ya all running on pump and AV gas watch out I am gonna do my best to run up front and do the beautiful dance of the fords for 25 minutes.


See Ya all there

[Brad Ellingson]

Can any of us say that we are such perfectionist drivers that an additional .5 to 1.5 hp will help?

John,

I could...but you all would pee your pants laughing so hard BTW...you should seek out your old DB6 at the 40th...it is gorgeous!

Brad

[Bill Tebbutt]

The "first losers" (the finishers who woulda been on the podium save for the rocket fuel runners ahead of them) in the various classes are more than welcome to come on over to our place afterwards to celebrate. We'll toast your sportsmanship, which to me is what the sport is all about at this level. We're buying.

Oh, wait, do I hear Frank Williams calling me? Gotta go check and see if the phone's still working....

See you all next week, in my rental VD
Bill Tebbutt