E-15 for NASCAR: Facts are Facts: Dealing with Biofuel Controversies

by Robert E. Kozak (Advanced Biofuels USA) Part II: An Interview with Mike Lynch, Managing Director of NASCAR’s Green Initiative

When we met with Mike Lynch last week at Daytona Speedway we spoke with him about some of the controversies, such as international indirect land use change (ILUC), that have arisen around ethanol and how NASCAR would respond.
He said everyone at NASCAR understood they were entering a world where a debate was going on. He said NASCAR’s response would be to rely on facts - scientific facts and technology facts, and NASCAR would defer to experts to present them.
As a primary example for this approach, Mike cited the EPA RFS2 decision on corn ethanol. He said that decision facilitated NASCAR’s move to E-15 since the EPA decision said corn ethanol had a beneficial greenhouse gas emissions effect. (And yes that sentence did say EPA and NASCAR were on the same side of an environmental issue.)

Mike also pointed out that Sunoco, their official fuel supplier, understood the implications of the EPA RSF2 finding on E-15 in NASCAR. He thought the combination of the finding with the publicity of using E-15 in NASCAR would help drive Sunoco’s efforts to reduce the amount of non-renewable energy, coal or natural gas, needed to produce ethanol. Showing that ethanol production could be more energy efficient would increase the GHG benefits of Sunoco’s corn-ethanol.
Are folks open to hearing facts? Mike asked. He thought NASCAR fans would be. He thought they would be able to distinguish between facts and agendas if the facts were “referenceable” and honestly presented.
We asked Mike about the role of the media in the E-15 story. He said while the NASCAR press corps is used to covering the personalities and business of NASCAR, he thought their understanding of the history of NASCAR as well as their “openness and thoughtfulness” would allow them to give E-15 and biofuels a fair hearing. As for the outside media, Mike said NASCAR would be responding to questions with fact based answers and would not get into tit-for-tat arguments.
Mike went on to say that NASCAR’s contribution to the biofuel debate would be as a place for people to discuss the topic. In addition, the races themselves would produce results that NASCAR could stand behind, which would add more facts on the use of E-15.
(Editor’s note: Probably the strongest argument in favor of E-15 produced by the Daytona NASCAR races was that its use wasn’t a story. As Dale Earnhardt Jr. said, “the switch was seamless.” By contrast, the repaving of the speedway, which seemed straightforward, created the new “two-car” drafting style, controversy over the 200+ mph speeds, and a flurry of rule changes. This was the story that dominated fan conversion, media coverage, and resulted in a wild Daytona 500 with a historic finish.)
Making E-15 Happen at NASCAR’s Premier Event: The Daytona 500 NASCAR has a history of slow methodical technological transitions. For instance when the “Car of Tomorrow” was introduced several years ago, its first race was at mid-season and using it was optional. It wasn’t until the second season that all teams were required to use it for all races.
With that history in mind, we asked Mike why NASCAR was taking the risk of introducing E-15 at the Daytona 500. Not only is the Daytona 500 the first race of the year, but it is their showcase event. Their “Super Bowl” if you will. It attracts their largest television audience (8.7 rating and a 20 share this year) and sets the tone for the rest of the season’s popularity.

Mike admitted that introducing E-15 at Daytona did involve risks and that NASCAR and its stakeholders; racing teams, manufacturers, and suppliers were a very methodical group about making changes in the spotlight. But, NASCAR felt the change to E-15 was important enough to introduce it at the Daytona 500 rather than sometime in mid-season. He called E-15 “a bit of a capstone” for their Green Initiative. And he added that NASCAR does lots of development “off the radar” before anything is introduced.
With some development work already done, they felt the 2010-2011 offseason was long enough to implement the changes. They could, as Mike said, go down the learning curve in time for the Daytona 500.
Mike gave David Hoops of NASCAR’s technical staff the majority of the credit in pulling this off. He said David worked closely with Sunoco on the transition which included revising the fueling logistics at all of the tracks NASCAR would race on during the year.
Besides talking about the details of introducing E-15, we had a chance to hear Mike’s thoughts on some more general issues that apply to biofuels and other “green” industries.
What Makes a Successful Green Program? Mike’s formula for “green” to work means it must be a long-term business. If not, “green” is seen as being subsidized or as a science project. For NASCAR, this means getting stakeholders together to build businesses around the green initiative that would benefit all NASCAR stakeholders.

Mike said he sees some of this in the use of biodiesel by teams and media for stationary source generators. He called it an organic thing coming from the stakeholders, implementing on their own. He thought it was a good example of the Green initiative causing stakeholders to join in rather than spectating or going in another direction.
New Green Marketing Opportunities Mike said biofuels, as well as non-fuel green initiatives will be part of a new comprehensive marketing stream. He said NASCAR is producing new brand-marketing image spots with drivers that will include E-15.
I asked him half jokingly when would there be the “Official Biofuel Enzyme of NASCAR.” He laughed but said, “stay tuned on that.”
The Strength and Future of US Farm Communities When Mike started working on the E-15 project with Growth Energy he had the opportunity to visit growers and co-op owners in the Midwest. He said when he was visiting co-op owned ethanol plants in South Dakota and Minnesota he was surprised at seeing cutting edge science in such locations. He talked to operations people who had worked in medical biotech and had moved to biofuels.
Mike became really enthusiastic as he talked about what he saw. He talked about meeting a 4^th generation grower who was farming the same land in a way that “was not opportunistic.” He talked about how it was POET (a NASCAR sponsor through Growth Energy), a farm based family owned company that was figuring out how to make cellulosic ethanol work, and not fancy hi-tech venture capital biotech firms.
Mike went on with his vision of what biofuels can do for rural America.
Heartland kids could go away to colleges like MIT, but could come back to the family farm business and use their education. They could live on the family farm but have good paying long lasting technical jobs in new businesses that would contribute to American energy.
Final Thought Mike finished up by saying that getting their audience to a comfort level on biofuels was their goal. How to get to from “willingness to listen” to “acceptance of facts” was the challenge before NASCAR.
Mike hoped the message presented by the four quick and simply stated benefits of E-15 and other biofuels