Club Arnage

A question........ :-\

I was wondering if anybody could explain the ACO's thinking about only allowing teams to re-fuel cars when they first enter the pits?

Over the course of the weekend we had teams re-fueling damadged cars before then taking them into the garage for repairs.  Should anything go wrong I wouldn't want to be the one sitting alongside a car full of fuel!! :o

Just having an extreme thinking moment!!

Petrol is not that dangerous, the bit that is dangerous is the petrol fumes which is highly inflamable and likely to expode

So it would make sence to fill the tanks and reduce the chance of expolsion.

May be that is why they do it. - unless someone knows different?

I believe the reason for the new refuelling  rule is so that there is no possibilty that the car pulls out of the pits with the refuelling rig still connected a la F1

An associated question:    There was a new rule this year that the cars had to be earthed before refuelling could start.  Anyone see/know how this was achieved?

Del

Would that be done via the jacks?  I seem to remember the car went up on jacks regardless of having tyres or not.

No - they cannot be (weren't) jacked up whilst refuelling.

Del

I've never understood why they refuel before jacking up the car to do other things. Yes, I know they can't touch the car (except screen-clean etc) while fuelling, but the car weighs considerably more with fuel, so the jacking system has to work harder. I always throught the idea of endurance racing was to limit the stress on components so they'd go the full 24. This procedure does exactly the opposite.

Baffuled!

I loved the dance of the mechanics during tyre changes this year and the ACO complaining 'you can't do it like that'. ;D

Chuck Dressing put it perfectly when I think he said "when is the ACO ever smarter than the team bosses?'

Spot on!! You're far better off having an incident with a full tank than with a tank full of virtually nothing but fumes.

Ah, yes, as in a jet off Martha's Vineyard a few years back?

So what about the diesels, then? Quite hard to ignite diesel fumes, I think, and isn't it even heavier?

Surely "same rules for all" - if its a safety issue then that draws the line for all.

Hi Del,

I don't know how the other teams did it, but at the KSM pit they used an earthed cable which was clipped to the central locking of one of the wheels at each stop.

Diesel fumes are even easieer to ignite I believe, you don't even need a sparkplug to ignite it in an engine!

But at 22:1 compression - a typical diesel ratio, I think - lots of substances can get a bit funny!

Diesel fuel has low flammability, leading to a low risk of fire caused by fuel in a vehicle equipped with a diesel engine.

The United States Army and NATO use only diesel fuel engines and turbines because of fire hazard. Diesel does not explode in a manner such as gasoline does, it just slowly burns.

I knew I should have paid more attention in my science classes  :D