Ok, so I’ve only been watching NASCAR for a little while, but I started wondering today about the fuel at the pitstops. The average pitstop seems to be about 14-16 seconds. In that time, the fuel the car and change anywhere from 0-4 tires(though the stops are less time if they’re fuel only). How do those gas cans work? I filled up my car at the station today and in that amount of time, I’d be lucky to get a full gallon of gas into the car. I’d think that they’re putting more than that in there. Are the gas cans set up to somehow put gas in more quickly? I can’t imagine that those cars get terrific fuel economy, so how much goes in during an average stop?
The racing gas cans have much bigger nozzles than the corner gas station, and are gravity-fed though that big pipe rather than being pumped at less-than-maximum flow through a small one. Also, the gas tank is vented (the guy with the little square can at the back of the car catches the overflow from the vent) so there’s no resistance due to air trying to escape through the filler neck.
The cars’ tanks hold 22 gallons*, and the filling cans are 11 gallons.
They get somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 miles per gallon, IIRC.
— They’ve been reduced somewhat (I don’t recall how much) for superspeedway races to try to break up the packs; they still carry 22 gallons on short tracks.
NASCAR’s big on tradition; it’s entirely possible that they use the cans solely because that’s how they’ve always done it. And if they switched over to using tanks and hoses, they’d also have to change the way the setup works (as is, you can’t put gas into the car unless your catchcan man has the can in the hole - it triggers the gas flap to open) and retool the method of pit stops, which have become a finely tuned sychronized-mechanicking event. IOW, they might just think it’s more trouble than it works.
