<VV> Racing with Gasoline and Ethanol - -but not together

[Sethracer at aol.com]

On speed  channel the other day they were talking about ethanol in  the honda 
powered  indy cars, they are running 10% ethenol mix for fuel  but next year 
they are  switching over to 100% ethenol.

Aren't  the NASCAR guys going to E-85 in the next year or so? I think this  
is  
part of "racing is research"  justification.

Ned





No - NASCAR is going to unleaded gasoline as a standard fuel. They use  
highly leaded racing fuel right now. It is part of a drive to get Lead out of  any 
application. The IRL is changing from Methanol - Wood Alcohol - to Ethanol -  
Grain Alcohol. Part of it is a publicity thing. The Grain based (corn, mostly) 
 Ethanol is seen as Farmer-friendly, especially in the mid-West. There was a 
real  special human-interest  story this year about the changeover to Ethanol 
in  the IRL. The person who was most responsible for the change, both in the  
publicity of it, and the selling of it to both the teams, the sponsors and the 
 companies involved was Paul Dana. Paul was an ex-journalist who finally made 
it  into the IRL at what would be considered an "advanced" age - Probably 
twice  Marco Andretti's age. He was driving for Bobby Rahal racing with the 
Ethanol  group as a sponsor. He was killed earlier this year in an IRL crash (in  
Florida, as I recall). As a person, he was well thought of in the racing  
fraternity. Many doubted his racing capabilities but nobody doubted his personal  
commitment to racing and the Ethanol program.  By the way Champ Cars still  use 
Methanol.  - Seth