Unleaded fuel possible for Busch, trucks later this year
By Kenny Bruce
Friday, April 21, 2006
Before the end of the 2006 racing season, NASCAR officials hope to have both Busch and truck series teams using unleaded fuel. And if all goes well, it's likely that unleaded gas will be used in the Nextel Cup Series beginning in 2007.
"We don't know where we're going to be with [unleaded fuel for the Cup series]," Robin Pemberton, NASCAR's vice president of competition, said April 20. "We said by '08. ... If the tests look promising, we will re-evaluate the timeline.
"We are going to, before the end of the year, run unleaded fuel in some select races, probably in the Busch and truck series. Some of their races are stand-alones, [on] short tracks and things of that nature. You're looking at less mileage, smaller carburetors, less horsepower."
NASCAR teams have always used leaded fuel, and is exempt from the Clean Air Act of 1970 requiring unleaded fuel be used in all automobiles.
Pemberton said testing with the new fuel has been "on-going" since the 2005 season, both at the NASCAR Research and Development facility in Concord, N.C. and among a number of individual teams.
