Here's some interesting calculations ref fuel consumption and race cars:
OK, my turbo Talon has 51 lbs/hour injectors, 4 of them.
Translate that into gallons/hr (at 7.5 lbs/gallon of gasoline) that's a
total fuel flow capacity of 27.2 gallons/hr.
Maximum injector duty cycle is limited to 85%, so that's 23.12 gallons/hr.
Max duty cycle only occurs at full boost and high RPM, and a full lap of
LeMans isn't done on the rev limiter in 5th, so actual fuel consumption is
somewhat less than that - let's call it 50% as a rough guess. So a race lap
is consuming an estimated 12 gallons an hour.
Total fuel consumption is thus 288 gallons for the full race. With a 16
gallon tank (and assuming that the tank is completely emptied as we pull in
for each stop) that is 18 fuel stops. Assuming $3.50 /gallon for race fuel,
total fuel costs for the race are $1008.
An accurate guess on tire wear is hard to pull off, but it looked to me
like the big boys were changing tires once every two stops. Assume
full-tread Kumhos (so we don't have to worry about rains vs inters vs dry)
in the size I race now (275-17) That's 9 sets of tires, or 36 tires total.
At $160 per tire, that's a tire bill of $5760.
Whee! This is fun! I couldn't afford to run _my_ car at LeMans, never mind
one that might be actually competitive!
DG
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