Auto racing embrace green trends

Green racing is the bringing together of the world of auto racing with the quest for cleaner-burning fuels and more energy efficient engines.

The first American Le Mans Series race to feature the Green Challenge, which is basically a race within a race, was held last October. Michelin is the series 2009 sponsor and the event is now known as the Michelin® Green X® Challenge. Green racing awards a prize to the fastest car that produces the smallest environmental footprint in a race. John C. Glenn, an environmental specialist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said “Race cars actually move the technology of street cars in several ways; one, the technology of race cars develops at a much faster pace than the technology in street cars. And two, they form the basis of what kind of cars people want. They see cars racing on the track, and that’s the kind of car they want to buy.” Glenn and others at the EPA were behind the development of green racing as it has come to be known. The Green Racing Working Group was formed in 2006, when the EPA, U.S. Department of Energy, Argonne National Laboratory and SAE International came together to establish criteria for this new type of racing. In 2008, the American Le Mans Series announced it would become the first racing series to put the environmentally focused competition on the race track. “These are still 200-mph cars. We clearly did not want to change racing. We didn’t want to make it boring and slow,” Glenn says. “We didn’t feel as if that would accomplish our goal, which is to get people to use more energy-efficient vehicles and to stimulate the development of more energy-efficient technologies.”