Unleaded fuel passing Cup test at Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS -- By all accounts, Monday was just another busy day for Sunoco's West Coast crew chief, Jim Daniels, and his staff, as they pumped racing gasoline into fuel cells and metal gas cans from the company's facility on the grounds of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The only giveaway that anything was out of the ordinary was a small sticker on the pumps that read "260 GTX Unleaded."

As expected, the first full-scale Nexel Cup dress rehearsal with unleaded racing fuel appears to be going off without any major glitches.

"As NASCAR continues to transition over to the use of unleaded fuel, the Las Vegas test lined up to be a timely opportunity for us to conduct a full two days of racing on a 1.5-mile track," NASCAR spokesman Kerry Tharp said. "Both the NASCAR Busch and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series successfully ran unleaded fuel on an abbreviated schedule the second half of the 2006 season."

NASCAR had originally planned to make the conversion from leaded to unleaded racing fuel for Nextel Cup teams in 2008, but after the success in the other two national touring series last season, moved up the timeline one year. Teams will use leaded fuel for the Daytona 500, then make the switch to unleaded beginning the next week at California Speedway.

The Busch Series first used the new fuel at Gateway and experienced no unusual problems.

"A lot of the engine builders shared information with our inspectors and there weren't any issues," NASCAR competition director Robin Pemberton said this past fall. "You might have seen some extra wear and tear on some internal pieces, but the engine-builders have been working on unleaded fuel since we announced it was coming and no one had any problems."

Developed as a racing fuel for Grand Am sports cars, 98-octane 260 GTX made its debut early last year. It's a pure hydrocarbon fuel -- it contains no alcohols and ethers and is non-oxygenated.

Sunoco began developing high-performance fuels in the '60s. The original 260 was designed for the muscle cars of the era. However, 260 GTX is definitely not street-legal.

"We have a long history in developing fuels for high performance engines," Sunoco technical manager Mike Miller said last January. "It is rewarding to be able to continue the 260 tradition with this new fuel."

There were two engine problems during the first day of the two-day test. Clint Bowyer's No. 07 blew an engine in the morning session, while Brandon Whitt's No. 72 lost one in the afternoon.