Official Mazda RoboPong 200 Discussion Thread

gregg boyce · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 7:23 am Post subject:

Steve,

I think you missed my point. I said that pushing it on fuel wasn't worth the downside risk of running out of fuel and potentially loosing many laps to save 10-15 secs in a race where, until this year, the winner has had about a lap lead. But for your arguement let's say you went to lap 55 on each stint. Your last stop would come on lap 165. You have 15 less laps on the final stint or about 27% less fuel needed. If you stop took 1 min you save maybe 16 sec tops. Also, if you fill up every stop you'll have to put in 5 laps less fuel on each stop saving about the same amount of time but split over 3 stops. Either way I think its a wash, but you don't have the risk of running out if you don't strech it.

BTW, very few can make it 60 laps on a tank....if they're legal.

$.02

GB
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Jim Conlin · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 7:46 am Post subject:

I agree with your analysis 100% Gregg.

Chris Livengood · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 11:17 am Post subject:

We saw 57 laps on one tank and had a fair amount of fuel left. 60 laps most likely would not have been a problem. We checked our volume with the "official tank" and our tank actually held slightly less fuel. I think it is going to be really interesting to see karters work on fuel efficiency for these races.
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Tom Sekey · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 3:24 pm Post subject:

I guarentee you could get 60 laps + on a tank of gas and be legal. You wont be very fast though. Gear and jetting will do it along with driving conservativly. At least with a leopard. The only way it would really matter would be if your trying for a 2 stop race. The loss of lap time out weighed the time of one pit stop. We did all the math and testing in practice.

CJ Lintner · Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 81

Tom, Zach fell back at the beginning of the race due to contact with another kart. He fell back to about 15th/20th, then worked his way back up to seventh before his stint was over. Like I said before the kart was competitive in both qualifying and the race =)

Tom Sekey · Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 6:21 am Post subject:

On lap 47 Kyle over took the MRP for 18th spot and than the pits started cycling through. Our mychron was broke so Kyle pitted early. Look at the lap chart on my laps. It tells the whole story. You can also see every lap time of every driver too. The MRP was averaging in the 1:07's where the DB team and other front qualifyers were averaging mid 1:06's. What did you guys do to that rotax in qualifying to go so fast? Shocked

Dan Schultz · Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 5:57 pm Post subject:

As someone else pointed out, the Arrow Karts had an impressive showing. What model Arrow kart are people using or are there a few different chassis they use?

Evan Batt · Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 8:51 pm Post subject:

We used the AX9 CIK. However, the winning kart was an AX9 4S.

Chris Livengood · Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 5:57 am Post subject:

There were also more arrow karts than any other brand with a fair number of them being home track drivers.

Perhaps if they had similar results at Man Cup i would be impressed.
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Mike Arnold · Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 3:02 pm Post subject: fuel mileage

How can some go about 42laps & others 50+ laps before needing gas?

Is it jetting, fuel tank size, driving style, engine set up or what?

Mike

Michael Maurini · Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 3:23 pm Post subject:

Mike,

I worked for Spencer Pigot and Cyndie Allemann during the Robopong. We made it a goal to go to lap 50 in the first stint, lap 102 the second stint, lap 154 the third stint to ensure the last stint was only 46 laps and if we needed to battle for the win we could have. The First stint was only 50 laps in length due to the three pace laps (need to take those into effect).

We probably could have gone another 2 - 3 laps per stint but why risk it. We concentrated on keeping close to the front of the pack while conserving gas as much as possible and both drivers did a great job....Even with all of that, they were able to turn the fastest race lap.

Gas consumption comes down to three things Gear/RPM, Driving Style and Jetting...We did not race with the same gear we qualified on nor were the drivers driving nearly as hard. Jetting was similar but the main concentration was to draft, let off 10 feet early, get on the gas 10 feet later....SAVE FUEL. We lowered our max RPM to the target RPM that we were hoping to achieve and all was going well....A rear gear failure 18 laps left with a 35 second lead cost us the win and a $5000 pay day.

This is one of the most fun races every year but also the toughest to win. Competition is tough and your equipment has to last. After working with the winning team in 2007, we thought we would take the same approach this year but nothing is guaranteed....I'll be back for sure in 2009!
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Mike Arnold · Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 3:25 am Post subject: Cyndie?

Michael,

I was watching your team effort and was following them closely.

I most impressed by Cyndie's speed for a person who had not raced there before.

Do you know what she is doing now and her plans for '09?

Thanks for the info. on the fuel mileage.

Mike

Michael Maurini · Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 6:21 am Post subject: Re: Cyndie?

Melissa Wagner · Joined: 07 Oct 2007 Posts: 37

Derek made it 55 laps on the first stop. He had enough fuel left to make it another 5 laps, so next year look for him to stop at 60 laps.
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