NASCAR 101: How Do Teams Determine How Much Fuel Is Needed Without Fuel Gauges?

Cars in NASCAR aren’t quite the same as the regular cars that are seen on the road every day. Apart from the obvious, countless little factors distinguish them, key among those being the lack of a fuel gauge. Stock cars consume fuel more than a hungry baby does milk and are refueled multiple times within a race. But how do the crews cope with the job without a gauge to measure fuel requirement?

The simple answer is math. Teams have complicated equations going on at any point in a race to figure out how much fuel is left in the tank. They make these measurements depending on the driving style of the man behind the wheel, the nature of the track, and the car’s behavior on the day. The lap times that are being run and the race strategies play a role in the calculations as well.

The primary reason why cars do not have gauges is because they won’t be very effective on NASCAR tracks. The surfaces are usually highly banked rendering gauges, which typically give out accurate measurements only on straight surfaces, useless. The math that the crews use in place is typically more accurate and reliable than what any gauge can provide.

Team Penske driver Joey Logano explained this in an interview on The Dan Patrick Show years back, “We don’t really need a gas gauge. We’re able to calculate it so well by the lap times we’re running and we have strategies on how much I need to save as a driver and what I need to do.” Despite the more nuanced approach that this method offers, it is not always without fault.

The most recent example of calculations going wrong occurred at the Sonoma Raceway when Joe Gibbs Racing star Martin Truex Jr. ran out of fuel. He was running in second place and gunning for his first victory of 2024 when his tank went dry. He somehow managed to crawl past the finish line at 27th place.

In a video explaining how the fuel system works, Joe Gibbs Racing explained that the fuel can weights are measured before and after pit stops. This provides an exact weight of fuel per gallon. This, in turn, helps to understand how many gallons were used in the car during the race. The way fuel is measured is just one of the many things NASCAR cars do differently and better.