NASCAR officials in fuel investigation
NASCAR officials and Sunoco are investigating how water got into the racing fuel during Sunday's NExtel Cup race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Speaking Monday during a two-day test session, Nextel Cup director John Darby said the contaminated fuel affected "more than two and less than 43" of the cars in the Pep Boys Auto 500.
Darby has asked Nextel Cup teams to disassemble their fuel filters and fuel cells from the cars involved in Sunday's race in order to determine how widespread the problem might be. In addition, he's asking Craftsman Truck Series teams - which also fuelled from the pumps over the weekend - to report on anything out of the ordinary.
The water that entered the system was a cloudy brown colour. NASCAR, Sunoco and independent labs are currently testing the substance to see what it might be and where it came from.
NASCAR has ruled out sabotage.
Pole sitter Greg Biffle was the first to notice that his car wasn't running right and the problems lasted throughout the race.
Denny Hamlin led with seven laps to go, but during a re-start his Chevrolet Monte Carlo sputtered and came to a stop as the green flag waved. Denny Hamlin's team blamed the problem on water.
NASCAR also found water in the gas tank of race winner Jimmie Johnson.
Others affected were Dave Blaney, Clint Bowyer, Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton, Ryan Newman, Kurt Busch, Juan Pablo Montoya, Reed Sorenson, David Stremme, Scott Riggs, Kasey Kahne and Elliott Sadler. "It is a very, very rare thing and I don't understand the logistics of getting fuel to the track," Jeff Burton said. "It's something we just take for granted.
"Obviously, I think that's much more of an isolated case than it's going to be normal. So it definitely had an impact on the race on Sunday, which was disappointing, but at the same time that's been a very rare occasion. So I'm not concerned about it in any form or fashion."
