The Toyota/Michael Waltrip Nascar Team has been penalized for using a fuel additive. NASCAR would not reveal what they found and there is lots of speculation and a few red herrings floating arround with the AP reporting that a person with knowledge of the investigation saying it was a property contained in jet fuel. There were also rumors that it was Sterno, or jellied alcohol that was rubbed inside the intake. The substance has also been reported as an oxygenate by NASCAR.
One of the more sophisticated theories is that methanol was added to the gasoline and reacted with the aluminium intake manifold and made the gel that was found.

Does anyone else have any ideas? I understand that rice has been ruled out as a suspect.

I also found that odd.  I'm not aware of any fuel additives that would build up a significantly thick gelatinous coating inside a manifold, nor does the "jet fuel" property make any sense.  Jet fuel is basically kerosene with additives needed for cold temps/high altitudes.  It's not the stuff of high performance, unless you are Audi.

I've been around NASCAR quite a while, and have friends and a couple of relatives that work in that industry.  Jellied alcohol (similar to Sterno fuel, but developed specifically for plate racing) is the most likely scenario.  It is applied to the inside of the manifold.  It can provide some additional oxygen, and bleeds slowly enough to be effective over a 2 lap qualifying run.  Who did it, and why, is puzzling me.

The insiders speculation (according to a close friend of mine who works as an engineer for a big cup/busch/truck team) is that it was  a jelled alcohol substance applied by a Toyota (TRD) person, possibly with knowledge of MWR personnel.  In order to protect Toyota from major embarassment at their big debut, NASCAR and MWR have concocted the story about an "illegal" fuel additive that created a jelly like substance inside the intake manifold.  This allows someone within MWR to take the blame/gatevalve, and shield Toyota from having to fall on it's sword (publically save face).

I have no idea if it's accurate.  Until NASCAR comes forth and tells us ALL of the information, we may never know.  Since they don't have a history of doing that, I'm not holding my breath waiting!

F1 guru P. V. Valkenburg in Racecar Magazine told of a WWII fuel additive that made gasoline thinner or runnier. Since it liked to disolve and then evaporate off, it had to be used fairly quickley. It was not used for power, it was used to transfer fuel faster. It was hidden in the dip stick tube of the overhead fueling tank. Turn the cap in a way to release it about the time the race starts, let it mix for a while, fill the car a few times, then it dissapears. Quite clever. Saved a few seconds on every fill.

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