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PHILLIPS: Envisioning a Post-Gasoline Racing World
Written by: David Phillips
SPEEDtv.com   http://www.speedtv.com
02/07/2007
Pittsburgh, Pa.
 
Will "Gasoline Alley" become a misnomer before too long? (LAT photo) ยป More Photos

Less than a year ago, I was afforded a minute and a half on "Wind Tunnel" with Dave Despain to explain the significance of the Audi R10 diesel and why its participation in the upcoming 12 Hours of Sebring figured to be a motorsports milestone.

What a difference a year makes. Last season, the Indy Racing League announced that its IndyCar Series would switch from methanol to ethanol fuel in 2007. And yesterday, Bobby Rahal – a man who has won his share of motor races and championships on gasoline and methanol – declared that gasoline-fueled racing is "a dinosaur."

The occasion for Rahal's declaration was an announcement by the American Le Mans Series and the Ethanol Promotional Information Council (EPIC), that ethanol E10 (10% ethanol/90% gasoline) will be the "official ethanol-enriched fuel" of the ALMS. While the IndyCar Series will be the first major race series to run on pure ethanol this year, the ALMS becomes the first major series where all of its teams – Audi excepted – will run street-legal ethanol-enriched fuel.

Just imagine . . . at this year's St. Petersburg, Mid-Ohio and Detroit IndyCar/ALMS doubleheaders, not a single car in the headline events will run on pure gasoline. And the ALMS is on record about planning to go to E50 in the near future.

Now in the interest of full disclosure, the EPIC/ALMS announcement came on the heels of the announcement that Rahal/Letterman Racing's "Team Ethanol" IndyCar Series sponsorship program will be expanded to include its new ALMS Porsche GT2 effort. So take Mr. Rahal's eulogy for gasoline-powered racing with at least a pinch of salt.

Is that eulogy premature? With the visionaries at NASCAR only now boldly embracing unleaded gasoline and with 99.99% of short track and amateur sports car racing around the country fueled by gasoline, gasoline-fueled racing is here to stay for years to come. Heck, even E50 is half gasoline.

It is hyperbolic? Hardly. For a host of economic, environmental and geopolitical reasons, the industrialized world is waking up to the fact that it must give more than lip service to renewable energy sources; that embracing alternative fuels is more than "a sign of personal virtue." That includes most manufacturers selling cars in America, whether they're based in Detroit or Tokyo, Stuttgart or Seoul.
With its diesel-powered Audis and now ethanol-blend fuel, the ALMS has boosted the connection between its racing and emerging auto industry trends. (LAT photo) ยป More Photos

Which is what makes the ALMS/EPIC deal both a no-brainer and a home run. For on an increasingly cluttered American motorsports scene, with competing open-wheel series, competing sports cars series and even competing sprint car series, ALMS has identified and occupied a niche all but abandoned by the competition, including NASCAR: embracing
technologies relevant to the automotive industry.

Just try and buy a new car in America equipped with a carburetor. You'll find 43 of 'em on the grid of every Nextel Cup race. Certainly, there's loads of Hondas on the road, less so Panoz Esperantes. But you'll search long and hard to find a Cosworth, Crawford, Dallara, Doran, Fabcar, Riley or Swift purveyor on your local automobile dealership row. Traction control? Long an option or even a standard feature on many mid-range and luxury cars on America's showroom floors, it's strictly verboten in most domestic racing series. Apart from ALMS, that is.

Racing's intersection with relevant automotive technology is a topic that fully engages a man who turned a wrench or two on his father's Porsche Carrera 6 at Sebring in his day.

"Not that racing shouldn't be entertainment, but in the past it's had much more of a connection to the technical side than as of late with many, many series," says Rahal. "If you look at NASCAR, it's great in terms of entertainment, but I can't see much of a connection between what's racing and what's actually being produced by Toyota, Dodge, Chevrolet or Ford.

"Our RSR is built on the same assembly line as your every-day street Porsche. At a certain point the suspension and bodywork gets changed here and there, but the basic structure and a lot of the basic systems are no different. And I think what makes Le Mans itself, and the ALMS intriguing, is the fact that technical development is welcomed and promoted.

"Look what's happening at Le Mans this year; you have Peugeot going after Audi with their diesel-powered cars. You've had alternative fuels at Le Mans before that maybe a lot of people haven't heard about, but they were the pioneers in this.

"So we think the relevance of the ALMS to the street market is a key factor in our making a move to it, and the fact that companies like EPIC are coming in bears witness to that. I think it's important for people in this country to see that alternative fuels can work in applications where there has been some question about that. Let's face it, gasoline-powered racing is a dinosaur. It is going away, and going away rapidly."

Like I said, this is not a call to jettison your Chevron or Exxon stock – at least for financial reasons. But it is a hearty pat on the back to those looking to reconnect racing with relevant, leading-edge automotive technology, particularly alternative fuels.


David Phillips is a Senior Writer for RACER magazine. To learn more about RACER, click here for subscription information.