Cup Watergate: Sunoco Fuel Gone Bad?

In the internal combustion process, water doesn't burn too well. Actually, it doesn't burn at all.

Denny Hamlin's Chevrolet engine tried to burn water Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, and the result wasn't pretty. Martin Truex Jr. slammed into the No. 11 as it stalled leading the field to a restart, Kyle Busch spun through the grass, and Carl Edwards unbelievably jumped five spots on the start.

Hamlin's car didn't stumble because of a lack of Sunoco racing fuel in the tank, but rather a fuel pump filled with water that had somehow made it into the team's fuel canisters. When Hamlin hit the gas, the pump fired more water than gas, causing Hamlin's engine to sputter.

Dave Blaney and race-winner Jimmie Johnson also found trace amounts of water in their systems during post-race teardowns.

Only Hamlin and Blaney had significant performance problems as a result, and Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s team suspects water caused Junior to fall back at the start of Sunday's race.

NASCAR apparently can't quite figure out where the water came from, mainly because it affected different manufacturers on different teams.Problems that supposedly won't happen again:

"We're very confident going forward to Texas and the rest of the year, there won't be any issues," NASCAR Nextel Cup Series Director John Darby said. "Sunoco will continue to monitor and perform all the testing procedures that they do at an event to insure the fact that the fuel is pure."

Darby once again dismissed any talk of sabotage.

"There's enough teams from enough different manufacturers, enough different contaminations, enough different everything - that if it was sabotage, it's got to be somebody who hates NASCAR racing across the board," Darby said.

You would think something like this would never happen in a major auto racing series -- especially with so much on the line at the end of a NASCAR season.

And Sunoco better make darn sure that what decides the season title isn't silly fuel problems.