New Race, New Fuel

by Chad Bishop (Bowling Green Daily News) Cars using corn-based ethanol in Sparta’s inaugural Sprint Cup race

A NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race has finally found itself in Kentucky. And when the lights go on tonight in Sparta, the sport will present to fans one of its newest initiatives nearly three years in the making: ethanol.

Not only will tonight’s Quaker State 400 at 6 p.m. CDT be the first cup race in Kentucky in 57 years, it will also be the first time ethanol - derived in part from corn - will be the main fuel source for the drivers at Kentucky Speedway.

Joe Neal Ballance, a member of the Kentucky Corn Promotion Council and a farmer at Triple Oaks Farm on Three Springs Road in Bowling Green, is on board with the ethanol movement in the sport.

“I think NASCAR has its roots in the country,” Ballance said. “I think corn is very representative of the U.S. farmer and I think it’s very good for our country. I have heard some ethanol pundits on different news shows and different news programs and I think so many people just aren’t educated and make bold statements on things they know absolutely nothing about. I think without ethanol, no one truly knows what gas would’ve cost two or three years ago because it’s lessened our dependence 10 or 15 percent on a lot of the foreign oil.”

... Bill Tichenor, director of marketing for Holley - which manufactures carburetors in its Bowling Green plant and has been sending those carburetors off to NASCAR since 1968 - backed up Bowyer’s claims of a problem-free transition.

“To be honest with you, we haven’t heard a lot of anything positive or negative from our end,” Tichenor said. “We’ve been focusing mainly on their switch to fuel injection and working with them on that. READ MORE