With 70 laps remaining in the Bank of America 500, everyone's favorite pair of words have entered into radio chatter across all the teams: "Save fuel."
Oh joy, here we go again.
The goal is to be able to reach a window in which the drivers could make their final pit stop, then go from there without stopping again. Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin both made caution-flag pit stops to top-off their fuel tanks, while leader Brad Keselowski has been attempting to save fuel on the track.
Fuel strategy has played a role in all but the second race of the Chase at Loudon. In the opener in Chicago, Denny Hamlin ran shy of gas on the very last lap and dropped from the top-10 to 16th. Hamlin and a dominant Kyle Busch both had to pit late at Dover, while Keselowski stretched his gas to win that one. Last week in Talladega some teams topped off their fuel tanks under a late caution in anticipation of multiple green-white-checkered attempts (there was only one, marred by the 25-car melee in the last turn).