Leaded shifter fuel

[JasonL]

While reading the Supp. Regs. for NO49, I noticed that the fuel spec for shifter is open and VLR is semi-open - requiring unleaded fuel with limited alcohols.

Is anyone running leaded fuel in shifters? Its use poses danger to the user through contact with the fuel, anyone nearby when the fuel is burned, and the environment overall. There are many good reasons why it was phased out of automotive use ~40 years ago.

Aside from adding the hassle of testing fuel in another class, is there a downside to stipulating that shifters use only unleaded fuel in the future?
If no-one is currently using it, it may be a moot point.

[Jackmazury]

Hey Jason,

Good question. As background to this there are generally 4 fuels being used in Shifter. VP MS109, VP C12, Fury 112, and a Gulf one that I do not know the name of. Of these, 3 are leaded and MS109 is unleaded.

I have been pushing to get everyone to use 109 as it makes the most sense based on your exact points. This has been mostly successful and majority of the grid has it as their fuel of choice (~80% as a guess). There are a few who elect to use the cheaper options which contain lead. I agree with your commentary on the health effects and environment, TEL is not something we should be openly dealing with in 2024. I have been pushing the people who can alter rules for a few years to ban leaded fuel with varying degrees of success and no enforceable action. This leads to the second point on this that it is near impossible to enforce as lead isn't an element we can test for easily. We can spec a fuel and oil to test based on that, which would be my preference, but I can see that not having buy-in unanimously as VP is the most expensive of the list above and people have varying dollar values on their overall health. We are splitting hairs in my view, as assuming you use 3-5 tins a year the savings are under $300, not exactly an amount you can run a Shifter campaign on.

I think to effectively enforce anything on fuel you need to be able to test for lead. Not to throw anyone under the bus, but I would say with 95% certainty that there are karts in VLR running leaded fuel despite the regulations. C12 and Fury have a very different smell than 109 both in liquid state and when burnt. If we allow multiple fuels you cannot test anything, thus even though the rules say unleaded only, the enforcement falls to a gentleman's agreement which has been more than proven to not work in the current day of CKRC.

It is my belief we should spec a fuel to get buy-in on all the race fuel using classes. I don't think we should allow leaded fuel in any form. This problem is also not unique to us, ROK GP, X30, etc. all required race fuel. If you go to any race in the US (Rotax included) you are going to be running leaded fuel as a spec, the Americans are incredibly partial to it as is Eastern Canada. Pb lives long and dies hard when it comes to karting under the guise that it is a lubricant, which is true, but not one which has any practical use case in the modern day.

I will be pushing for an outright ban again this year based solely on the health implications. You wouldn't install a lead pipe because it may outlast PVC, just like you wouldn't use lead paint in a nursery. Apples to oranges, but it should be no different here.

[JasonL]

If you’re close enough to smell a difference, you’re likely getting a fair huff of lead. Maybe that explains your violent tendencies.

It’s one thing if someone feels their own health isn’t worth a few extra dollars, but there are a dozen others at the grid area when karts are getting warmed up pre-race - all breathing in lead. Unfortunately, unlike many other ‘toxins’ we may encounter, our bodies don’t quickly clear out lead from our blood. In the ground, half-life can be over 100 years.

Amazon has some cheap lead test kits. They seem designed to test hard surfaces - I’m not sure if they would work with fuel.

[John Kwong]

I have been using Fury 108 which is a leaded fuel. We used to use VP's, C12 or MS98 before the unleaded fuels were available and back then VP was the only fuel available. VP has always been expensive. Currently, a 5 US gallon pail of VP is about $200. Fury 108 if bought in bulk, meaning bring your own container is about $85 for 5 gallons. If you are using 5 pails of VP ($1,000) and 5 pails of Fury $425 that is a significant difference.

The hazard sheet on the AFD Petroleum site is exactly the same for unleaded and leaded.

Leaded Fuel hazard sheet
https://afdpetroleum.com/wp-content/upl ... Leaded.pdf

Unleaded Fuel hazard sheet
https://afdpetroleum.com/wp-content/upl ... leaded.pdf

The long and short of it is ALL gasoline is nasty stuff that you do not want prolonged exposure to. As a 45 year veteran of karting and having raced multiple classes for most of those years, I have breathed more kart exhaust and poured more gas into a kart than anyone. Leaded fuel is still produced and allowed for non-highway or off-road use which is what we are doing. Anyone concerned or sensitive with exposure to fuel from pouring should be wearing gloves, eye protection, long sleeves and pants when handling fuel. As far as exhaust fumes go, there are no catalytic converters on karts so any exhaust fumes from Briggs, Rotax, VLR or a shifter motors are direct to the atmosphere and your nostrils. There are hazards in everything we do. In my opinion, banning leaded fuel in our kart racing will not minimize the hazards of gasoline in any negligible way.

John K

[JasonL]

John,
I agree that ingesting exhaust is never a healthy thing to do, however, lead is a particularly harmful component because it accumulates in the body over time. This is why the world has worked for decades to eliminate it from water pipes, fuel, paints, and other consumer products - and why I've noticed that the people at Overdrive put gloves on before working with kart weights.

Lead exposure has been linked to the fall of the Roman empire, and its removal from the environment has been shown to have increased IQs and reduced rates of violent crime across the world. I think the paragraph below from https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2265 ... lic-health summarizes things well.

Lead poisoning causes immense societal harm: brain damage, chronic illness, lowered IQ, elevated mortality. Lead exposure in childhood has been linked with violent crime rates decades laterhttps://www.motherjones.com/environment ... en-health/. Extremely high lead levels can lead to seizures, coma, and death. Lower levels tend to cause less detectable harm, but there’s no safe level of lead exposure: Scientists’ current best guess is that anylead exposure at all causes harmhttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27837574/.

[John Kwong]

No argument that lead is bad but our particular level of exposure is minimal compared to the historical examples you cite and probably why lead is still allowed to be manufactured in the race fuels that are still available today.

[Tjfast]

As someone who has tried to experiment with leaded gas and done extensive research into high performance fuels, what I found is that while TEL does have added benefits in the fuels on a scientific level, the unleaded fuels now have extra compounds to get those same benefits. I experimented with running 110LL av gas as it was super cheap but at the end of the day I found that the extra dollars I saved weren't worth the added risk. I am a firm believer of the fact that health is wealth, and switching away from my 110LL was an easy change to "improve" my health, which was one of the factors why i switched, and that it sucked. I agree with John that we are taking risks here, but I would argue that we should reduce risks where possible and having a no lead rule is low hanging fruit.

For the extra few dollars a year that is spent on a unleaded fuel, that is in effect an investment in your health and the health of others, this is at least how I see it. Everything comes with an opportunity cost and in this case that cost is - cheaper fuel with an added health risk or - higher priced fuel with a *reduced* health risk. Having worked in the chemical industry there is some nasty stuff out there and id like to breath in the least possible . One thing that is important to note about exposure is how it effects everyone differently, especially kids who are at a elevated risk from everything due to their smaller sizes resulting in higher effects of exposure vs an adult of similar exposure (yes im using think of the kids argument). Since there are lots of small kids at the track both fans and racers, i think it best to reduce their exposure. I for one try not to be around the grid when the VLR's warm up, as frankly its disgusting and I don't want to breath it in.

As an interesting story, a study was done on school kids that lived near a NASCAR track once they switched away from leaded fuels and they found test scores rose. Of course im cherry picking a study here but interesting none the less. https://www.nber.org/papers/w28250

At the end of the day my stance is that this is a low hanging fruit and that reducing or eliminating the use of leaded fuels poses a net benefit to the health of all racers at the expense of higher fuel costs for some.

[vquiring]

As a Rotax driver my opinion is mostly irrelevant. I just want to clarify a couple of things with respect to the two Safety Data Sheets previously referenced. The leaded fuel sheet is 13 pages and the non-leaded sheet is 10 pages. Clearly they are not the same; in general Safety Data Sheets cover storage, handling, fire fighting, exposure limits etc. for the fuel in its liquid state and vapour state (evaporation).

The main point of this discussion is largely about lead in the engine exhaust. The Safety Data Sheets do not cover the products of combustion coming out of the tail pipe.

[Mark]

I think we are missing something here. TEL is an additive i.e. it's added after the fuel has been refined. That means someone is spending $ to PUT it in racing fuel.

No business adds production cost without a marketable reason. So.... why add it ?

Historically, TEL was added as a lubricant for valve seats. Valve seats are now hardened so its not required. We race karts and 2-stroke ones at that so no valves anyway but others use race gas in very different motors than we do.

Lets assume there's a good reason for having lead in racing fuel (MOST racing fuels have it). There are a few that don't but availability is a key issue here. Cost is another -but availability is king. Regardless of cost, where can we get a high (>100 octane) fuel that is lead-free ? If it's difficult to get then its not much use to be discussing it.

Lead is poisonous. So is alcohol but we willing drink it. For the amount of exposure we get to leaded fuel exhaust, I don't think we need to be getting too worried about it. Of course none is better than some but we need to be practical so until or unless there is a reliable local supply of unleaded race fuel and some kind of manageable price then its all moot.

[dvelpel]

One thing that is important to note about exposure is how it effects everyone differently, especially kids who are at a elevated risk from everything due to their smaller sizes resulting in higher effects of exposure vs an adult of similar exposure (yes im using think of the kids argument). Since there are lots of small kids at the track both fans and racers, i think it best to reduce their exposure. I for one try not to be around the grid when the VLR's warm up, as frankly its disgusting and I don't want to breath it in.

I fully agree with the above and have mentioned it several times.