Have Roger Penske's men resolved their engine fuel problems? Allmendinger's on the pole, but Keselowski is on pins and needles

  One of NASCAR's bright new stars, and a man not unwilling to speak his mind (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   That's another curious issue with NASCAR's new electronic fuel injection system. Problems with the system and its various electrical cables cost Robby Gordon at Bristol, when his car couldn't even start.
   And there have been some other instances of problems with the new electronic systems, involving Tony Stewart at Phoenix and Mark Martin and Joey Logano at Daytona.
   Just how big the problems might really be isn't clear, though; NASCAR execs have been extremely sensitive to the whole efi issue, for some odd reason, to the point of even fining Keselowski $50,000 for criticizing it last fall.
   Hence Keselowski's hesitancy here to get into a discussion about it, even though it has already cost him two good finishes in the year's first seven races, and even though the problem still hasn't been solved, leaving him on pins and needles here.
    After all, if a Roger Penske operation is having problems with efi, who knows what else is really going on behind the scenes, since so many teams are reluctant even to talk about efi, for fear of angering NASCAR.

    AJ Allmendinger, Keselowski's teammate, took the pole Saturday for the 400, at 175.993 mph. Keselowski will start from row six.
   Speed, though, may not be the key here, since gas mileage has been the winning edge in three of the last four Kansas races.
   The new efi systems have equalized the gas mileage game among teams, Martin Truex Jr. says. The computerized efi systems, though, apparently have their bad points as well as good points.
   Keselowski confirms that his car's engine problems at Texas and Las Vegas were in the efi system: "Yeah, we've obviously have had troubles.  That's not good.  We're working on it.
   "The only way to know if you have the answer or not is when you get to the end of the race: it running or not running? 
    "At Texas we did not have the answers. 
    "We can do all the testing we want. Obviously at the end of the day we didn't have it right at Texas."
   And that came a month after the problem was first seen at Las Vegas.
    There are many pieces to NASCAR's new efi systems: the computer box and its software, the hardware parts in the engine, and the complicated electrical cables that tie everything together.
    And there is considerable secrecy among teams about all this. At Las Vegas Jimmie Johnson, though he even gets his own engines out of the same shop, was very curious about just what Tony Stewart had under the hood of his winning car, for example. The Jack Roush teams appear to have a good handle on their efi systems. The Richard Childress teams not so much. And whatever Toyota has been working on here, it seems to work very well for the Michael Waltrip teams, but not so reliably for the Joe Gibbs teams.
   NASCAR officials have debated having teams lay out some of their efi data for the rest of the garage to study, to try to keep parity. But so far there has been no specific action.
   And just what might be found inside the efi system of Keselowski's cars, well, he probably doesn't care to get too specific.
   "Obviously it's mechanical, because it stops running," he says.  "It's not a simple process to get it back going; it requires changing parts.
   "I'm assuming that's the case, based upon the changes to make it right after it fails."

   Keselowski was last fall's surprise in the championship chase. Will he make it to the playoffs again this time? That Dodge-to-Ford switch that car owner Roger Penske is planning may become an issue.
   At the moment Keselowski says that, despite three bad finishes in the year's first seven races, he's comfortable with how his car is performing….well, everything except this nagging efi problem
    "We've had consistency in speed, we just haven't had consistency in finishes," the 28-year-old racer says. "I've had three bad finishes -- two were for parts, and the third one was getting caught up in the big one at Daytona. 
    "I'm not concerned about anything other than the failures; the rest will work itself out."
   Keselowski is mired 15th in the standings, a whopping 90 points – approximately 90 finishing positions – behind leader Greg Biffle. Matt Kenseth and Dale Earnhardt Jr. are tied for second, 19 points down. 
    Keselowski: "I told Matt Kenseth this the other day: I've race side-by-side with Matt in every race this year, and if we hadn't had those two gremlins, at Vegas and Texas, I feel we'd be second or third in points. 
    "I don't feel bad about our efforts.  We just have to get rid of those gremlins. 
     "We're a team that has the ability to win races and run for a championship."
    But first Keselowski has to get back in the game.