FORT WORTH, Texas -- A failure in a portable piece of dispensing equipment was to blame for fuel being contaminated with water during last weekend's Nextel Cup event at Atlanta Motor Speedway, NASCAR officials said Friday.
Several cars, most notably those of Denny Hamlin and Dave Blaney, experienced problems with water in the fuel late in last Sunday's event. An investigation conducted by NASCAR and official fuel supplier Sunoco found that the fueling station at the Atlanta track functioned properly, but a piece of portable equipment used to transfer the fuel did not.
"A failure did occur in a piece of portable dispensing equipment that is sometimes used to supplement the permanent pumps on busy race days," NASCAR spokesman Kerry Tharp said Friday at Texas Motor Speedway. "This failure allowed a small amount of water to be dispensed. Portable equipment has been used for many years without problem, and, in fact, this equipment functioned properly during the Craftsman [truck Series] race at Atlanta right before the Nextel Cup race."
Tharp added that the piece of equipment in question is not required for fueling at Texas, and that modifications have been made to prevent a repeat of last week's event. That's little consolation to the teams that saw their Atlanta runs ruined by watered-down gasoline.
"We don't have any choice but to be [OK with NASCAR's findings]," said Mike Brown, general manager of the Bill Davis Racing team that fields Blaney's car. "I don't know of any recourse that we could have. It's unfortunate. I guess we were just the first one in line [at the fuel pumps] or something. It's just one of those deals. You can fret about it all day, but at the end of the day I don't think it was anything intentional by anybody. It's unfortunate that we lost some valuable points, but at the same time, I don't know what you can do about it."
Blaney finished 38th, while Hamlin wound up 24th after his sputtering Chevy slowed and ignited a three-car accident in the event's penultimate restart. Other teams, including those of Penske Racing and Richard Childress Racing, also reportedly experienced problems. NASCAR revealed Monday that a brown-colored water had made its way into the fuel at Atlanta but the track's underground storage tanks tested free of contamination, leading investigators to focus on the connections between the tank and the fuel pumps.
Brown believes NASCAR will learn from the experience.
"I don't feel like that will happen again," he said. "If anything, it made everybody aware that it's like getting a car ready to race. You've got to look at every possibility of what could happen, and contamination is one of those things. It just wasn't our day."
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NASCAR.com