Aren’t they just now planning the move from leaded gas in NASCAR?

Anyway, I think it could be good PR for NASCAR to switch to a fuel made in the “Good Ol’ USA”, and something that is more environmentally friendly.

“…we would definitely be in favor of any move that moves us away from dependence on foreign oil.”
Are you serious Brent? What percentage of the nation’s fossil fuel demand is burned in race cars? Pick a different battle. . . one that actually makes sense and that might actually help move the US away from said fereign oil.

Yes, it would be good ethanol publicity; but so would a network of ethanol fueling stations!

The flyovers and drivers personal planes waste more fuel then an entire race weekend could ever. But it’s still not a bad idea, especially since Indy Car racing has been using methanol for decades and now the IRL recently switched to ethanol. The only issue would be NASCAR’s current rules require really small fuel cells, which would need an increase in size to get the same kind of mileage with ethanol. Not a big problem, but something worth considering with respect to the rules.

I think this would be a cool tie-in to the heritage of NASCAR, being basically started by moonshiners and rumrummers building up their cars to outrun “The Law” so they can transport their distilled grain alcohol. It would just be cool to have the same basic stuff powering the cars over 50 years later.

whats next diesel F1 cars mind you the torque will be out of this world

Every little bit helps.

Thats a superb idea. Everyone who watches Nascar is an alcoholic anyway.

#5,

Why not? Audi’s R10 (a twin-turbo diesel) won its first race it entered in Le Mans this year, and another team will be racing a biodiesel car:

http://www.autoblog.com/2006/05/05/bio-diesel-racer-entering-lemans-in-2008/

Both BMW and Mercedes have teams in F1, and both have great diesel motors. BMW’s twin-turbo diesel won International Engine of the Year 2 years in a row in its class, which was NOT exclusive to diesel motors. Last year it finished 2nd overall to BMW’s V10, and 3rd this year, behind the same V10 and VW’s 1.4 liter diesel. Not bad for technology that can run on algae, poop, and french fries, eh?

–ant

“Thats a superb idea. Everyone who watches Nascar is an alcoholic anyway.”

That’s a pretty broad generalization, and nowhere near true. I’ve seen more drinking at the 24 Hours of Sebring in one year then 2 Daytona races.

“I think this would be a cool tie-in to the heritage of NASCAR, being basically started by moonshiners and rumrummers building up their cars to outrun “The Lawâ€? so they can transport their distilled grain alcohol. It would just be cool to have the same basic stuff powering the cars over 50 years later.”

That’s more of a myth, or an embelashed half-truth if you will.

#9 – It’s 12 Hours of Sebring, buddy. And dude, they were both kidding. Take it easy.

While I am not a NASCAR fan, I am a racing fan, and I think that the switch to ethanol would be easy enough. But herin lies the issue that the “enviro-politicians” aren’t telling the public. It requires more oil usage and pollutes more to create ethanol than it saves by using ethanol. It also uses up additional resources in the process. So where is the environmental friendly outcome. All that the public wants to hear is the quick fix to the oil dependancy issue. There are several “theories” that have been haphazardly thrown out there that the media grabs onto and the uninformed public takes as gospel. For instance: Global Warming – I worked for a company that launched several satellites to monitor earth and sea temps and have seen NO evidence of global warming. But, because so many people get rich by convincing everyone that we are causing global warming by using fossile fuels, why would they stop. The same was true of the hole in the Ozone Layer. Our company also launched a couple of satellites to explore this theory and what was found was that the hole is a natural phenomenon that changes size constantly, even closing up periodically. Ozone is created by lightning, electrical arc, etc… and freon has no effect on it. But, the public listened to the media, so a lot of people got rich…just like the companies that made billions off of the research.
I wish that the politicians would focus on cleaning up pollution, enforcing the clean-air act, etc… instead of creating a media frenzy out of a solution that is actually more hazardous than the problem.
If people would actually research the scientific evidence that is publically available instead of believing what they read in the newspaper (only editorial opinions) then maybe there wouldn’t be so many problems in the world.

I’m no NASCAR fan but this does seem like a good way to raise the awareness of an audience who isn’t exactly known for their love of the environment. I don’t mean that in a bad way and there are exceptions.

Hey if they can sell Ethanol for $2 and gas is $3 I am all for it. Over time the subsidies will hoepfully be diminished, infrastructure will be in place, all autos will use it, OUR farmers (or our friends to the south) grow it (instead of us fighting for oil overseas) and the world changes for the better. Let good ole capitalism work.

What the heck, it might happen. Better than waiting for hybrids to save the world!

Oh yea, the good ole boys using ethanol will help sell ethanol on Monday!!!

I was thinking about this at the California Speedway race a couple of months ago. Sounds great!

one of the anonymouses… it IS true that nascars roots are in moonshine running… its in the nascar imax film…
id like to see this move made… it actually could help wean us off foreign oil… the more loyal nascar fans drive what they root for…

It would help with GMs marketing plan with E85. Good move.

Make ‘em distill it themselves. ILLEGALLY. Get busted = no fuel to race.
Getting the ’shiners back into NASCAR would at least make the ‘rush hour traffic’ they call a race interesting.
Get rid of those sissy helmets too. And let ‘em have .22cal pistols too, fer shootin’ out tires.
On the environmental side… whatever they don’t use to fuel the car (conservation) can be used to make ****tails! You’ll see a fuel efficient engine then!

This could actually be good!

Oh yeah, get NASCAR to get rid of the Gay Pride colors.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that….

What exactly is so bad about ethanol?