Perspectives on Green Racing from Dayton International Speedway’s Garage and Pits

February 22, 2010

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by Joanne Ivancic (Advanced Biofuels USA) Advanced Biofuels USA is perhaps the only biofuels-related organization keeping an eye on biofuels in racing with a page describing various projects that promote and encourage innovative, green racing, to numerous articles and posts about developments in green racing. We believe that the race track is where we will find breakthroughs in biofuels and engineering technology that will have wider industrial and commercial applications.

Example of IndyCar and ALMS

For example, IndyCars’ use of bioethanol was key to showing the world that biofuels can be just as powerful as petroleum-based products and the American Le Mans Series has become a laboratory for biofuel development with the encouragement of EPA/DOE’s Green Challenge program.

We continue to follow Lord Paul Drayson , UK Minister for Science and Innovation, and his quest to showcase innovative racing using cellulosic ethanol. From GT2 class to Le Mans prototype, Drayson Racing illustrates a dedication to the belief that motorsports can be a place to test new innovations with commercial applications.

Also in the American Le Mans Series, BP tested biobutanol, recently joining with DuPont to commercialize its production.

Greening NASCAR

In looking at advanced biofuels and racing, we have been reporting mostly on ALMS and IndyCar. After talking briefly with Dr. Mike Lynch, Managing Director for Green Innovation, and NASCAR PR staff a few months ago, it appears that for the time being, “greening” NASCAR focuses on the tracks and operations rather than on cars and racing technology. After all, it was only a few years ago that NASCAR started using unleaded fuel—and that took years of preparation and transition. Their carbureted push rod V8 engines haven’t been available in production cars in the US for 25 years.

So, as part of Advanced Biofuels USA’s coverage of use of biofuels in green racing, we headed to see what participants and owners were thinking about biofuels at the Daytona International Speedway. DIS, we observed, puts a technical effort into recycling in the pits, garage areas, and FanZone, but doesn’t make it easy. Recycling bins are poorly marked and few and far between, certainly not next to every trash can. It is not clear what is recyclable and what is not.

Eco-Sponsored Racing

So, we focused on a different aspect of racing: sponsorship and marketing partnerships; specifically, Leilani Munter’s eco-sponsored Mark Gibson Racing entry in the ARCA series.

David Yeazell, a contributor to BleacherReport.com, after photographing and talking with Leilani in pit lane wondered if she was “real;” if the eco-promotion was sincere or just a marketing ploy. It seems her insistence on eco-minded sponsors may pose more limitations than advantages making her eco-promotion far from greenwash. Solar and wind-power companies and energy efficiency experts are not your usual NASCAR-related racing promoters. Many don’t currently link energy efficiency or new automotive engineering technologies with NASCAR fans, and visa versa. However, Munter has been able to bring their logos onto the ARCA, track, beginning with NEXTEra Energy’s partnership for the December 2009 practice and moving to a group organized by GREEN and SAVE for the February race.

In the Pits and Garages

To get a diverse sample of reactions to greening ARCA or NASCAR we also talked with pit crews and other supporters in the garages and pits at the ARCA Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200 practice, qualifying and race days.

First some background. The ARCA races have been described as the “high school” of the NASCAR series; with the Nationwide series “college” and NASCAR the real pro career. Thus, many of the ARCA “rides” are staffed by volunteers, interns, pros who love the sport and want to help shape young drivers and crew; and long-time amateur drivers and their teams. NASCAR requires a satisfactory ARCA experience before a driver is permitted to participate in Nationwide or higher level races.

As a result, the ARCA garage/pit community is friendly, outspoken, full of heart, fun, direct and enthusiastic.

A number of people when asked about green racing mentioned “We have some solar sponsors,” taking community credit for bringing Leilani’s new eco-market to an unlikely sport. Many interviewed had given serious thought to how the racing community could improve its environmental stewardship. Some examples:

Rodney West

Mark Gibson Racing crew member Rodney West who specializes in car prep, explained one way that Leilani’s eco- and fiscally conservative values address this issue. Crew were encouraged not only to recycle the numerous plastic water bottles that proliferate around the race car garage as a way to protect the environment, but understood that those collected by her can be turned into t-shirts for the crew.

Interviews with others in the garage area showed other pro-environmental stewardship influences of Leilani, the Eco-sponsored car(s), every day common sense and a desire to do the right thing.

Sandy Sparrow

Sandy Sparrow, PR, Marketing and Spotter for Darrell Basham, said that greening NASCAR was not going to happen fast. People had bad memories of problems with motors during the recent move from leaded to unleaded gasoline. She doesn’t see an easy transition, especially in ARCA where used equipment is key and new equipment would be far beyond their financial means.

Sparrow had more confidence in improving attitudes toward waste at race events. Personally, she can’t stand Basham crew members abandoning partially drunk soda cans and water bottles. As a crew leader, she takes names and holds people accountable. She understands the time constraints on workers; waiting for repairs, then rushing to get the car in position. She also knows that people can change given the right motivation.

One season, she collected plastic bottle caps to raise money for a charity that helped children with cancer. She said the race crews really stepped up to the plate, bringing innumerable bags and boxes of caps they collected in the garages and pits. And, she noted sadly, every one of those caps represented a tossed, wasted plastic bottle.

Her observation and solution: If tracks really wanted to have successful recycling, they would do two things: 1) make it easier to recycle; 2) have a competition among tracks. If fans and crew knew their extra care in tossing a bottle into a recycling bin would benefit a charity, she said, they’d enthusiastically participate. The program would not only benefit the environment and the charity; it would also be good PR for the track, for NASCAR-related races. What’s not to like?

Nora Fitzgerald

Nora Fitzgerald has been around car racing a long time. Her father, Barry Fitzgerald drives the 06 TheBusPlace.com car for Peterson Racing. Caught in a “women in racing” mode, I noticed this team’s high density of females working with the crew, identified by the fluorescent lime green “06” on their black crew shirts. Nora explained that some are friends and supporters rather than official crew.

The young Fitzgerald had solid, considered comments about NASCAR’s evolution into green racing. Her assessments: Attempts to improve the environment via the power of racing promotion could make car racing more acceptable to a wider audience (Leilani and the solar energy sponsorship, for example). Existing fans, she estimates, would be about 50% for greening racing; and 50% wouldn’t care for it. She believes “her generation” would appreciate greening the sport more than older generations.

Nora comes to her conclusions from a unique, informed perspective. Her driver-father’s business, Colonial Equipment, supplies vans, cutaway buses, transit buses, coaches, and hybrid drive vehicles in the Mid-Atlantic Region. Although www.TheBusPlace.com is a prominent sponsor for the 06 car, few probably know that, being in the business of promoting use of hybrid buses, this car could also qualify as “eco-sponsored.”

As many wrecks as there were in the ARCA race, Nora’s dad, Barry Fitzgerald, was in one of the most frightening. Bumping, crashing into the wall, turning over, sliding to the grass, turning over again and again. It was a relief to see driver Fitzgerald walk away from the smashed pile of metal and to hear later that they expected him to be released from the hospital that night.

His experience provided another illustration that change can happen in NASCAR. NASCAR delayed so long in instituting the safety features in its cars and on the track that likely saved Barry Fitzgerald’s life.

Martin Coberly and James Perrin

Tracking down students in the University of Northwestern Ohio’s High Performance Automotive Technology program lead to Martin Coberly and James Perrin who were interning with Brad Smith’s #26 Appliance Zone team.

Coberly wasted no time in answering my question about greening NASCAR. As far as he was concerned, pollution from NASCAR events is relatively so minuscule that changing it should not be an issue. What happens in NASCAR, from that perspective, “won’t change the fate of the world.” He sees the hundreds of millions of fans that come to see NASCAR and related races as they are and have been for the past 25 years. In a way, he advocated for keeping NASCAR as it is as a sort of historic preservation of the sport that has dominated the love of American racing fans for a generation. He really didn’t consider NASCAR’s potential to influence change beyond its own boundaries.

Perrin wasn’t so sure about the need to keep the old technology, but he also wasn’t willing to express a solid opinion about other options. Conversation ensued about the character of NASCAR at its beginnings as a place to show off the latest technologies, to improve engines, performance and, eventually, aerodynamics to beat the other guy. Perhaps it is just as legitimate historic preservation to preserve that NASCAR spirit of innovation and change.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Racing legend Dan Gurney recently emphasized his view that “racing should reflect the future” as he ruminated on changes he would recommend for IndyCar. The new Indy delta wing car proposed to be built of recyclable plastics to race in a formula designed for efficiency and fuel economy, aims to attract an audience with the excitement of innovation and change.

Change doesn’t come easy to a sport based on showcasing races using 25 year old technologies. But the camel’s nose is under the tent. Six women raced the ARCA Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200; an all-eco-sponsored car initiated productive conversations about greening racing; a stealth hybrid bus business has long supported the 06 team; eco-sponsors got a first-hand, sometimes simply “first,” look at the realities of racing; and ARCA West is being sponsored by a biofuels supplier who will supply 30% of the cars with bioethanol.

Decisions are being made now that will determine if the future of NASCAR is more like a static living history museum based on Reagan-era technologies; or if it will instead embrace its original character, showcasing dynamic technological innovations as it did in the 1950s and ‘60s.

It’s an important conversation happening in the garages, pits and corporate offices of NASCAR and race tracks around the country. The currency is audience. Is tomorrow’s audience one that craves the stability of watching the same racing over and over—or does it anticipate being treated to something improved every year; watching the energy secure, well-stewarded technologies of the world of tomorrow demonstrated in front of them. Or, some combination of old and new.