Fuel starvation sidelines Dominguez.

The Herdez Competition team suffered a rare and as yet not fully diagnosed mechanical failure during Sunday's Miller Lite 250 involving the refuelling valve (aka "buckeye") on the number 16 Lola-Ford. With the team unable to refill the car's 35-gallon fuel tank, rookie Mario Dominguez was forced to retire on lap 74 of the 250-lap event.

Reflecting on his disappointment Dominguez mused; "It's just too bad that this kind of thing has to happen in the race when we can't fix it. We had a good racecar today - good enough to run with the leaders. But we didn't get the job done in qualifying yesterday which really cost us. It's really frustrating because we all had high hopes to come away with a good result and some points today."

Herdez Competition Managing Director struggled to contain his anger as he saw Dominguez rack up his third DNF in four starts this year. "We're thinking of changing our religion," he said. "We haven't diagnosed what it is yet - but something is just not right! To be honest, I can hardly believe it.

"What is particularly concerning is that after Jimmy Vasser's problem in Motegi, all of the refuelling valves were sent back to the manufacturer to be checked and serviced. So for all intents and purposes, the valve is brand new. It worked perfectly during Friday and Saturday and throughout pit stop practice this morning. Obviously, this is a serious issue so we'll continue to investigate until we feel confident that we have it fixed permanently."