My yearly ritual every Memorial Day weekend is to watch the Indianapolis 500, and I've done it every year since 1982--missing only the '94 race, when I was getting my college diploma. I don't follow racing the way I used to, but Indy is a part of my childhood, imprinted onto my DNA after growing up in Indiana.
It occurred to me this year, though, that the Indy Racing League missed out on a real marketing opportunity at this year's race. I'm not referring to the record four women drivers who started this year (including Sarah Fisher's record ninth start); nor am I referring to Bruton Smith's idea for an Indy 500/Coca-Cola 600 double header, much as I love that idea. The missed opportunity has to do with gas. Or, rather, the utter lack of it on the Old Brickyard during the running yesterday.
With the ongoing catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, alternative fuels are being talked about as never before, but how many people know that the race cars at Indianapolis run on a blend of ethanol and methanol? That it has done so since 1965?
Indy's use of alcohol as fuel was born of tragedy, rather than environmental consciousness. In one of the most horrific crashes ever at the Brickyard, driver Eddie Sachs rear-ended Dave McDonald. Sachs died instantly of blunt-force injuries but the ensuing explosion of their gasoline tanks touched off a huge fire. Dave MacDonald lived long enough to get to the hospital but died later that day due to severe internal and external burns; drivers Ronnie Duman and Jerry Unser were burned also but recovered. In response USAC, the governing body then in charge of the race, mandated the use of the less volatile methanol as fuel along with improved fuel tank designs. But the fact that the high performance cars racing at Indy (reaching speeds of 230 mph these days) do so on biofuel is anything but common knowledge. And that's a shame.
NASCAR trades on its "good old boy" image to market itself; I think the Indy Racing League, Indy's current governing body, is really missing out on touting the fact that open-wheel racing was green long before anyone was thinking of carbon footprints. And no, the handful of spots that ran during the race broadcast yesterday don't really count. There needs to be a full-on campaign, perhaps with Danica Patrick, the one open-wheel driver who's a bona fide celebrity outside racing, showing how the IRL is a leader in developing alternative fuel engines.
And if the IRL is missing out, what of the Detroit Three? GM had a strong presence at Indianapolis up until relatively recently, with many cars using a version of the Oldsmobile Aurora engine; Ford was a force in Indy car racing for years, too. But these days it's only Honda. That needs to change. Ford, GM, and Chrysler-FIAT too need to start developing Indy car engines, telling the world about them, and actually using them to develop better alternative or flex-fuel engines for consumers.
I'm all for doing quiet good deeds, but sometimes when you're on the cutting edge of something good, you need to shout about it. IRL, start yelling!