Robin Pemberton is a former crew chief and has worked at Petty Enterprises, DiGard, SABCO and Penske Racing South. He is currently the Winston Cup manager for Ford and works with all of Ford's NASCAR Winston Cup teams.
"Nobody in the garage area has really worked with it (fuel injection) yet, but NASCAR is probably more concerned about computer chips and things they can't regulate," Pemberton says. "What the computer people can do to make their cars operate and get an advantage through technology is a concern. It's not the technology they are worried about; it's the way people can use it.
"This isn't Formula One, but we all have items at our disposal with computers and technology. We're perceived as being a sport that is anti-technology and we're not. We're trying to keep the costs down on race weeks and that's important to us. When teams have engines blowing up because they are too lean because the weather changes, that's important and that could help create more interest in fuel injection."
Pemberton says wide temperature variances can affect how long engines can survive, based on the way the engine is tuned. If they are tuned for a 50-degree day and it turns out to be 80 degrees, the fuel mixture is not right for the ambient temperature and engines can blow up. That happened this past March at Atlanta Motor Speedway when nine engines failed during the race.
"It's inevitable that fuel injection will happen," Pemberton says. "They will have to find a way to regulate it and that is the most important thing."
Ray Evernham, who fields Dodges for Bill Elliott and Jeremy Mayfield, is another who thinks change will come. "I think it's inevitable, and the days of the separate carburetor and ignition are numbered," he says. "I think there will be an engine management system that makes more sense. Right now, nobody has enough experience with it because you have to be able to control it. But once that happens, I think it's a direction we can go.
"I think it's probably five years down the road and by the time that comes out, enough people will be familiar with it at NASCAR. It will be a lot easier in conditions because you won't be burning motors down or making pistons soft because of weather changes. We need to keep the RPM limits down because the cost of turning these things 10,000 RPM would be astronomical."
Evernham believes cost-containment issues are important in the sport, and that could eventually be a good reason for fuel injection. "Eventually, it's got to happen because a carburetor is a thing of the past. Otherwise, we'd still be running coupes and sedans."
Policing A ChangeDanny Lawrence is the engine builder at Richard Childress Racing and builds the engines for drivers Kevin Harvick, Robby Gordon, and Jeff Green. He would like to see the engines run more efficiently.
"Sooner or later, it's going to come to where we have to run unleaded fuel," Lawrence says. "That will be the reason to use fuel injection. I can guarantee you it won't be where everybody builds their own fuel injection like everybody builds their own carburetors right now. They still want it to be where the guys in the shop don't have to have a lot of engineers or computer guys. NASCAR wants to be able to put it on a table and take it apart and see exactly what you have there.
"The sport has escalated and there will be a time where the sport will want everybody to lean towards the new technology."
Lawrence says every team has flat-screen monitors and satellite dishes on their toolbox on pit road, so technology is already very visible in the series.