2022: Last Indy 500 with E85 - Next Year 100% Renewable Fuel

by Bob Kozak* (Advanced Biofuels USA) Sunday (May 30^th) marked the last use of E85 by cars racing in the Indy 500. The race, referred to as “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” had about 350,000 cheering fans at the track and a network television and streaming audience. It was won by Marcus Ericsson in a Honda Dallara. The ending was a hold your breath affair as he held off Pato O’Ward’s Chevy powered Dallara in a stirring two-lap shoot-out after 198 laps of the venerable 2.5 mile circuit (the first 500 was held in 1911).

But not to worry renewable fuel fans, Indy series owner Roger Penske announced on May 27^th that all Indycars will be running on a 100% advanced renewable fuel mixture being developed by Shell Oil.

Hopefully, this will mean a bright future for the promotion of advanced renewable fuels. I think we have the right team working on it!

The fact that the Indy 500, and the entire NTT IndyCar series, uses only E85 is probably something only die-hard IndyCar fans know. I’d also guess that even fewer people know that IndyCars have been using renewable E85 since 2012. This decade’s long missed opportunity was not caused by performance problems with the fuel, after all Scott Dixon set the fastest pole qualification ever (234.046 mph) this past May 22 using E85.

Instead, it seems like it was the result of a lack of interest by the previous owners of the Indianapolis Speedway/IndyCar series. While they talked positively about the fuel when asked, commentary about the climate change benefits of the fuel was missing from television coverage and from articles placed on their website by in-house writers.

Why? The fuel providers, first Sunoco and then Speedway, did not seem to spend any money on the promotion of E85. There were no commercials about it on the televised coverage nor were there at-track promotions of the kind Corvette and Drayson Racing did during the heyday of sports car Green Racing. With all big-time sports promotions having become a pay-to-play endeavor, without the E85 fuel providers crossing the line to full-time sponsors, nothing was going to be said.

I also have to call out the US corn ethanol producers on this. While they did sponsor some of the Iowa Speedway races, these low-rated events didn’t reach much of a national audience or the large crowds at races held in Indianapolis, Long Beach, California, Nashville, or Detroit. I think expanding promotions to those markets and the Indy 500 broadcast would have been a tremendous help in fighting the anti-ethanol sentiment that took off during the Obama Administration.

Let’s put the lost decade behind us. I think we might be entering the Golden Age of Advanced Biofuels in Racing. We are fortunate in having two very powerful organizations leading the way.

Shell Oil has been pushing for a renewable future for over two decades (at least). And, we know what resources they can bring worldwide.

Roger Penske, if you don’t know him, knows how to get things done. When I was a kid going to sports car races at Mid-Ohio (the best race course in North America!) it was all a pretty casual affair. Then Roger Penske retired from driving sports cars and put together a race team. They showed up wearing cool team tennis shirts or white sleeved shirts all with tasteful logos. Their garages and pits were equally organized. They quickly started winning. It took every bit of Dan Gurney’s and Bruce McLaren’s genius just to keep up. Penske didn’t stop there. Now he heads a multifaceted corporation that does everything in the automotive industry and makes a good profit doing it. By committing to 100% advanced renewable fuel in the NTT IndyCar series, Roger is saying it is necessary for the environment and he’ll make it work.

We look forward to the 2023 NTT IndyCar series. We hope to see innovative marketing and on-line promotions of 100% advanced renewable fuels and what they can do immediately to mitigate Climate Change. We also hope Shell Oil and the Penske Corporation will partner with the start-ups and universities developing innovative low-cost conversion systems and residual biomass feedstocks to give North American advanced biofuel production the booster shot it, the economy, and the world needs.

*Bob Kozak is the founder and President of Atlantic Biomass, LLC, and a co-founder of Advanced Biofuels USA. After working for about 40 years in the transportation, energy, environmental, and government relations industries, he is now focusing on the development of enzyme systems to convert low cost feedstocks into biofuels. He can be reached at atlanticbiomass @ aol.com