NASCAR has been known to bend rules and exploit the gray areas in the rule book. Years later, in a rare admission, a NASCAR veteran has come forward to talk about one such incident. 

Ben Leslie, who previously served as Mark Martin's crew chief, made an appearance on The Scene Vault podcast. He revealed how Roush Fenway Racing had tampered with the fuel rules.

The fuel limit was 22 gallons at the time. Fuel was measured using a device that could be restarted mid-reading and would erase the previous reading. As the reading started exceeding the limit, someone from the crew would shut down the device at 22. This made the scale drop back to zero.

"Guy would turn around and look, and he'd get mad! Cause when he turned it back, it erased it. it went back to zero," Leslie explained.

Over time, the crew got smarter and started pre-loading some fuel into the car before even going to the inspector.

Leslie further added, “So then, you know, you do that a time or two, and you make the fuel guy mad, so, 'Well, let’s put some fuel in it before we go over there so we don’t, we don’t keep just showing how blatant we are.'" 

The overfilling of fuel would allow the teams to run a long time without having to make a pit stop. Especially when it came to longer races, where teams tried to minimize pit stops and waited for better opportunities, such as caution periods. The teams managed to get away with all of this because of the inaccuracy of the measuring scale.

But not all teams were lucky enough to get away with the bending of these rules. 

How has NASCAR changed after the tightening of the fuel rules

While Mark Martin and Roush Fenway Racing managed to get away with bending the rule, Michael Waltrip Racing was found with a fuel additive in the car, which was jet fuel-like.

Initially, the team argued that the oil got mixed with the fuel, but NASCAR was not buying the story. Michael Waltrip was eventually allowed to race in a backup car. 

He later made a public statement saying, "I don’t think we’ll ever put this behind us, but we’ll try to do better in the future. This is my fault.” Waltrip also made it clear that the OEM was not involved in the matter at all. “You can’t be skeptical of Toyota. You have to look straight at me.” 

Since then, NASCAR has been very strict with its inspection. This has prohibited the teams from exploiting the gray areas in the rule book. 

You can read more on the Daytona Racing Digest!

Written by

Chionia Libania Colaco

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason