Nascar Energy

This is supposed to be a blog about anything in regards to alternative energy. So I am making good on that option to write about anything by expanding on something our class touched upon in our discussion on emissions regulations: Nascar.

Nascar itself does a poor job on its website to inform those interested in how it is making the sport more ecofriendly. There are no links to facts or FAQs, no type of public statements and there is only a time limited selection of articles that pertain to any press releases that Nascar makes. So I turned to Google, and I found a lot of information just not a lot of subjects.

The key thing that nascar is starting is the research into alternative fuels. By 1996 everybody in America has switched from leaded to unleaded fuels because of the potentially hazardous levels of pollutants that are produced by leaded fuels. Everybody, that is, but Nascar. Like the military, Nascar is one of the very few organizations that is not monitored or regulated by the EPA. That being said their automobiles do not have to have catalytic converters, emissions monitoring systems or even minimum miles per gallon. It was not until 2007 that a viable unleaded alternative was chosen for Nascar cars to race on.

That is a whole ten years later. In one interview article I found via Google cache, Mike Lynch states this:

"[Alternative Fuel] is one of the long-term initiatives that is very important to us. As Brian France has said, we'll be working with Sunoco to step up our efforts, making sure we're doing everything we can to look at alternative fuel options. That solution may be well down the road, but it's very important."

Out of context this statement sounds promising, however in the rest of the interview, Mike states that he largely plans to leave the ecofriendly tasks up to the individual raceways. That means that it will be up to them how they integrate with their surrounding environments, how green they are and how big their carbon footprint is. The biggest plan overall the raceways is currently at Grand Prix Arizona where the track management is trying to balance out the emission produced by educating the crowds and giving them seeds to plant back at their homes. In my opinion it is both not the most effective and among the most optimistic of human responsibility. I say this for two reasons; the crowds who go to the races are generally not the type of people who are concerned for the impact one person will do to the environment. (Sorry to all the nascar fans out there, but it’s the truth) So the likelihood of those seeds making it past their container is slim. Second, even if the seeds do make it past the bag, it takes decades for trees to become carbon eating machines. By that time this world is going to be a completely different place and a small population of trees is likely not going to be very useful.

Nascar needs to modernize. Yes they may have the fastest cars and the most loyal fan base in America, but the sport is exactly what is wrong with America's perception of driving. In fact, I will be so bold as to say that across the world, racing organizations are what is wrong with the world's perception on driving. Everybody is saying that alternative fuels are needed for our cars but imagine what would happen if people realized the benefits of alternative transportation. For most humans, the majority of the times we use our cars is for small distance trips. Trips that could be achieved on public transportation, bicycles, electric scooters or *GASP* walking. Only once people realize that cars are not as essential to our daily live and are definitely not to be used for thrill or that speed induced adrenaline rush, will change start to happen. So am I saying that Nascar needs to simply close up shop? In one word, yes. It is a sport that uses large amounts of fuel and produces exceedingly large amounts of pollution. All for seemingly unnecessary reasons. Unless they come out with an amazing car that produces insignificant to zero emissions there is no real reason for Nascar to stick around in this Green 21st century.

http://thephoenix.com/Boston/Life/40854-NAScar-bon-neutral/?page=2#TOPCONTENT
http://www.nascar.com/2006/news/headlines/cup/01/20/nascar.fuel/index.html
http://atmoz.org/blog/2007/02/18/nascar-contribution-to-co2-emissions/
http://www.nascar.com/2009/news/headlines/official/01/22/bfrance.transcript.media.tour/index.html
http://www.nascar.com/2008/news/headlines/official/11/11/mlynch.q.a/index.html