doctawife wrote:Riktor wrote:You cant swap drinking bottles/bladders in the hot pits?
Nope. Gas ONLY. It's a 2 hour penalty if you're caught doing more than gas.
Bear in mind that the hot pit rules vary widely from track to track and aren't set in stone until the morning of the race. The NL race is a good example. Prior to the race, the rumor/scuttlebutt about fueling was that there would be no hot pits, no fueling in the paddock, and fueling would be allowed only in the designated gravel area between the paddock and the entrance from the paddock to pit lane. 2 fuelers only (1 fueler, one fire guy), no driver in car. Nothing else to be done at fueling area during fuel but could could swap drivers after.
At the drivers/team meeting the morning of the race, Jay announced that there would be hot pits after all (presumably because of the high chance of clusterfvck in the gravel area). Rules were that there were to be a max of 3 guys over the wall at any given time, each team had to supply its own fire bottle, no work could be done on the car in the hot pit other than fueling, no driver in car during fueling, and driver change could be done in the hot pit ONLY if there was fuel being added to the car. This seemed to work well.
At Houston last spring, I don't remember there being the same restrictions on number of people over the wall, but then again we were limited on fire suits that race so it wouldn't have really mattered. But I do know that many teams were doing full pit stop type engine checking during the pit stops without penalty (oil check and addition, especially). I don't recall any mandatory penalties for doing other pit stop work on cars in that race.
The main point being, you won't really know what's allowed or not allowed in the hot pits at any given race until right before the race. You may not be allowed to do anything in the hot pits, you may be allowed to do anything short of a motor swap. Unless and until Jay or Nick come on the forum and say that it will/won't be allowed, everything on this forum is just scuttlebutt. That's just my $0.02 worth. Cheers.
Pat Mulry, TARP Racing #67
Mandatory disclaimer: all opinions expressed are mine alone & not those of 24HOL, its mgmt, sponsors, etc.