Play It Green

Racecar driver and environmental advocate Leilani Munter delivers a first-hand report from the front lines of the Gulf spill–interviewing shell-shocked fishermen who talk about having to find other careers now, discussing how oil execs shortchanged those who lost their livelihood and talking up the importance of moving to renewable energy. Despite her own fossil fuel-driven livelihood and all.

Why did this happen?

Oil companies: $150 million a year for 750 full-time lobbyists.

Gulf Coast residents: zip.

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Race cars push technology forward across the industry–and they are the cars people want to drive–so it makes sense that the race for greener cars should get tested on the racetrack. Green racing measures not only speed but energy use, emissions and use of alternative fuels—it’s a complex, 30-plus part scoring system designed by researchers at the Argonne National Laboratory so that racers don’t just drive slowly around the track to secure a win, defeating the entire purpose of auto racing. “These are still 200-mph cars. We clearly did not want to change racing. We didn’t want to make it boring and slow,” says John Glenn of the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA and Department of Energy first promoted the idea of green racing.

This is the second year of the Michelin® GreenX® Challenge at the American Le Mans Series, the only race series in the world where all cars are allowed to race powered by alternative fuels like cellulosic E85, E10, clean sulfur-free diesel and gas-electric hybrids. Racers compete in four classifications including GT, which are modified street cars.

In this year’s race—Aug. 15-16—overall race winners Gil de Ferran and Simon Pagenaud drove the de Ferran Motorsports Acura to lead an Acura sweep of the top three positions in both the race and in the Prototype category. “Hats off to Acura for not only creating a fantastic sports car but a car that can both win races and the Michelin GreenX Challenge,” said de Ferran. “This win at Mid-Ohio is like a home race for us. There are four Honda plants within a 50-mile radius of the track…”
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Being a hot woman who races sports cars is enough to ensure plenty of attention (particularly from men’s magazines) and financial success. But Leilani Münter, described on her site as a “vegetarian hippie chick race car driver,” with a site called www.carbonfreegirl.com, is actually using all that attention for eco-good. She’s trying to bring environmental education to the 75 million NASCAR fans and 40 million IndyCar fans and to green racing itself, replacing oil with biofuels and instituting widespread recycling at tracks. Her “Eco Dream Team” plan involves emblazoning the sides of her 200 mph race car with an “eco message” and inviting green companies to advertise on the other parts of the car for less than sponsors would usually pay—instead of 1 company paying $1 million for sponsorship, as is the norm, 5 could pay $200,000. In other words, the green message (which hasn’t been specified) is the “main sponsor,” not an oil company.

Münter is an ambassador for the National Wildlife Federation, she contributes to the green section of the Huffington Post, and made three trips to Capitol Hill to talk about environmental legislation this year. This weekend she’s attending Powershift—a weekend full of pro-green-jobs and anti-coal demonstrations, learn-to-green seminars and live music—in Washington, D.C. where on Sat., Feb. 28, she’s speaking about “creative activism” alongside eco-actress-activist Darryl Hannah and Elliot May of Reverb. On the racetrack, she’s also the fourth woman in history to compete in the Indy Pro Series, the developmental league of IndyCar.

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There’s something about the notion of going green in car racing that’s so spectacularly wrong. But what better place to show off the latest in alternative rides than among those who enjoy nothing more than breathing exhaust fumes and watching cars whiz around a track on a sunny spring day? That’s the plan for the 34th Annual Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach being held April 18-20 which will feature the cornily-named “Green Power Prix-View” that includes novelties like hydrogen-powered robotic vehicles and old standbys like hybrids.  There will of course be a green expo featuring lifestyle exhibits (read: products to purchase) and oil and petroleum waste from the cars will be recycled. But the real alternative happenings will be on the track, where Corvette Racing will be powered by E85 (85 percent ethanol). At the American Le Mans Series (the mega 12-hour race), Dindo Capello and Allan McNish will drive a biodiesel-powered Audi R10 (fuel from plants, essentially). The team is already kicking Peugeot butt having posted the fastest time for the first official practice session. ALMS has been recognized as the only race series in America to meet the standards of “green racing,” which include the use of renewable bio-based fuels; regenerative energy powertrain technologies; and well-to-wheel energy and greenhouse gas analyses.

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Young NASCAR champ Brian Vickers (his 2003 Busch Series win at age 20 made him the youngest NASCAR champ in a top-tier series) has been spouting some green messages lately. Not everyone believes that NASCAR’s minor improvements—like a recent conversion to unleaded gasoline—have anything close to environmental teeth. But Vickers talks tough, anyway.  “Congress, unfortunately, has made more progress on steroids in baseball and the Patriots, whether they’re taping NFL games, than they have on global climate change, the war, economic recession and a budget that’s out of control,” Vickers told the AP. “That’s what (ticks) me off. I’m passionate about making the world a better place, and global climate change is one of those things.”

Vickers drives a Toyota for the Red Bull Racing Team, but a Lexus hybrid off the track. He’s pushing NASCAR to do more recycling and to buy carbon offsets, even though NASCAR’s emissions, in the grand scheme of global emissions, are fairly inconsequential. But green moves by NASCAR are important. If the organization were to switch from gasoline to a biofuel, as GM has asked them to, it might lend more credibility to alternative fuels. Of course, diverting food crops to ethanol (and subsidizing our own rising grocery bills) is a poor solution for a long-term energy crisis.

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