During the post-race sessions, Greg Biffle pointed out the obvious and noted that it was unfortunate the Dickies 500 became a fuel mileage race.He brought light in a subtle fashion as to how his teammate got 8 more laps out of a tank of gas than he could. He followed that up with the premise that his team has to do their homework and figure things out. (Like maybe lurk about their garage stall a little bit more in the coming weeks!)
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I think there are any number of ways to change up the mileage a car gets. Biffle touched on the possibility of jetting. We saw that the year Ryan Newman cranked out a bunch of wins on fuel mileage as there are limits to maximum jet sizes, but no minimums and they took advantage of that.
The other altering methods could be race lines and foot work.
Race lines change often throughout a race so I don't think a race line can have that kind of affect unless they both ran the same differing lines all day long.
Footwork could affect gas mileage. Letting up on the gas earlier headed into the corners, less aggressive pedal stomping, how aggressively one handles the wheel. A good handling car by it's nature along can also improve gas mileage. There are many ways despite some drivers saying there is no way to improve gas mileage from the seat.
In the end, Greg Biffle said it was a good day as they gained points on many positions, especially that pesky No. 1 spot.
Photo Credit: Sam Greenwood/Getty Images
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How about The Biff askes his boss "The Cat in the Hat" how the #99 was able to make it on fuel.
ReplyDelete"The Cat" had chatted with Biffle almost immediately after the race, so I think they had a quick meeting of the minds.
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