Alternative Fuels - Green Racing What Is That, And Is It Possible?

Green Racing

February 27, 2008

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by Rob Fisher (Circle Track) ..."A little over two years ago at the SAE congress there was a meeting of a new technical working group. People from all over the racing community were at this meeting-tracks, sanctions, suppliers, engine builders, and more. We all agreed that we are likely heading into an era where environmental consciousness, environmental responsibility, and energy issues will become very, very important. A lot of us at this meeting were concerned that racing would get caught up in a wave of negative reaction to the energy issues."

While that initial meeting brought out many excellent points, Larsen and the team started talking about what sustainable racing would mean and how they could structure a set of guidelines or technical recommendations that would contribute to fostering exciting and entertaining racing, while at the same time help drive the new technology soon to come out of the automakers.

They had a secondary plan too; actually use racing as an educational opportunity, essentially preparing the market for the emergence of all these new technologies. They asked themselves the question, in this new era how can we really harness this incredible energy in racing and turn it to a way that it will benefit the country and the world?

..."Racing had always been a way to push the boundaries of technology and that technology would find a path to trickle down to production cars. That is not happening anymore. Today there is a huge gap between what is being done in the R&D labs of the automakers, and what is being developed for the racetrack and that is a little disturbing to us. If we could find a way to unite these resources that would be a really good thing."

...Racing with alternative fuels and alternative powertrains, such as direct injection motors, has not had an adverse impact on the racing that ALMS puts on the track, quite the opposite actually. "We've demonstrated that you can race just as competitively, just as exciting, just as entertaining, but do it in more of an environmentally friendly way," says (Scott) Atherton, (president and CEO of ALMS). "If you can achieve that, then why wouldn't you? That's something we're very proud to be leaders in, but I don't expect to be the only one for very long." READ MORE