Bosch-Equipped Cars Dominate As Ryan Newman Wins Martinsville NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Race

Ryan Newman,driving a Bosch-equipped Chevrolet fielded by Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), grabbed the lead and beat A.J. Allmendinger to the finish line in the Goody's Fast Relief 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series™ race Sunday at Martinsville (VA) Speedway.

Newman scored his 16^th career Sprint Cup victory and first of 2012 with Bosch wide-band oxygen sensors, and Bosch fuel injectors, spark plugs, fuel pump, coils, alternator and starter in his Hendrick Motorsports-built Chevrolet engine.

Newman passed Allmendinger to take the checkered flag in a green-white-checkered restart following a late-race caution which took out the Bosch-equipped Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets of Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, who had combined to lead most of the race.

This was the third win of the year in six events for SHR, and dating back to Tony Stewart’s victory last September at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, IL, it was the team’s eighth win in the last 16 Sprint Cup races.

Like race-winner Newman, top-10 finishers A.J. Allmendinger, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Brad Keselowski, Denny Hamlin and Stewart also ran with Bosch oxygen sensors, fuel injectors, spark plugs, fuel pumps, coils, alternators and starters, as Bosch-equipped cars dominated the race.

After Gordon and Johnson dominated the action for a total of 497 laps, a caution flag on lap 498 sent the race into overtime via a green-white-checkered finish. Gordon and Johnson stayed out on old tires as the lead-lap cars behind them came to the pits for tires and fuel. On the lap-504 restart, Clint Bowyer took Johnson and Gordon three-wide into the first corner, and all three cars spun. Newman passed Allmendinger on the second lap of the restart and held on to win by .342 of a second. Earnhardt finished third, followed by Matt Kenseth and Martin Truex Jr.

Onboard Computer, Oxygen Sensors Control Sprint Cup EFI System

“Fuel injection is a logical progression for NASCAR, and now NASCAR has switched to electronic fuel injection for all NASCAR Sprint Cup Series™ races. With the new EFI, an onboard computer controls fuel injectors in all race car engines, using input from two Bosch wide-band oxygen sensors in the exhaust to determine the right amount of fuel to add to the airflow just as it’s entering the cylinder,” said Wolfgang Hustedt, Bosch Motorsports Manager, North America.

“Bosch oxygen sensors are an exclusive NASCAR Performance^® product, and are the recognized standard throughout the racing world. NASCAR race cars go through many different operating conditions at every race, and oxygen sensors are an important component of the fuel injection system,” he said.

Bosch pioneered electronic fuel injection back in the 1970s, developing the automotive oxygen sensor as part of the total system. Today’s wide-band oxygen sensors, like those supplied to NASCAR, monitor the level of oxygen in the exhaust in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series™ race cars, and signal the car’s engine management computer whether the engine is running ‘rich’ or ‘lean’ or right on target.

Bosch wide-band sensors send varying, virtually continuous signals from ‘rich’ to ‘lean’ and anywhere in between, allowing the management computer to adjust the air/fuel ratio for best performance.  Bosch wide-band O₂ sensors respond to changes in the air/fuel mixture in less than 100 milliseconds (a millisecond is 1/1000 of a second), and reach operating temperature of 1400°F within 20 seconds or less, offering virtually immediate fuel management.

“Oxygen sensors relay vital information on engine performance to the vehicle’s engine management system, which controls the fuel injectors and determines how the vehicle reacts to race conditions,” continued Hustedt.  “This change to fuel injection will give NASCAR teams enhanced control over their vehicles’ performance, and the oxygen sensors are essential for maximum but flexible performance at each track.”

In addition to NASCAR, cars in Grand Am and American Le Mans Series (ALMS) road races, and Chevrolet V-6 IndyCar racers run Bosch oxygen sensors as part of their EFI engine management systems. Thirty-fiveyears after introducing electronic fuel injection and the automotive oxygen sensors, fuel injection pioneer Bosch continually upgrades system technology as it supplies automobile manufacturers, the aftermarket, and the racing community around the world with the most advanced systems available.