Environmental Impact Statement

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NASCAR estimates that 6,000 gallons of gas are burned during a typical NEXTEL Cup weekend. A typical racing season has 36 points races, not even counting non-points races for the up-and-comers, qualifying races and the every-city spectacle of racing in other classes.

 

Why not do laps around the earth?

If you want to just count the 36 point races during the season, it equals 216,000 gallons of gasoline lost forever in the pursuit of driving in circles. That’s enough gas to drive a Toyota Prius around the world 514 times!

 

When you look at NASCAR’s total fuel consumption across all series, it comes in at just over 2 million gallons of gas per year. Now you’re talking about enough gas to drive your Prius around the world 1,000 times with enough left in the tank to drive ALL THE WAY TO THE SUN!

 

At full racing speed, NEXTEL Cup cars get between 2 and 5 miles to the gallon. Normal consumption is at least 14-18 miles per gallon, based on comparable (beefy V8) engines generally available to the public. Interestingly, the rate of fuel consumption tends to be the same regardless of the actual speeds of the cars, meaning they burn the same gallons per minute at 150 as they do at 170, because they’re always rapping out the engine to its maximum power band and the laws of physics only allow a certain maximum of energy to be expended per minute… and they expend it like it’s going out of style.

 

Guess what, it’s already gone out of style, but nobody’s told them. It’s time for us to tell them with a powerful, clear message..

 

Emissions and pollution

These consumption figures only say how much gas is burnt, and doesn’t even hint at the true environmental impact in terms of sum, net or (very) gross emissions. Unlike almost every other machine in the nation, NASCAR vehicles are unregulated by the EPA. They have NO MUFFLERS, NO CATALYTIC CONVERTERS and NO EMISSIONS CONTROL DEVICES. Emissions controls and mufflers guarantee that what comes out of a vehicle is as clean and quiet as possible. In NASCAR they are only engineered for speed and the price to the pocket book or environment be damned.

 

Use of lead additives in gasoline

The use of leaded fuel has been outlawed in the United States since the 1970’s when catalytic converters were required to be installed on new cars, making unleaded fuel a requirement, but NASCAR is apparently above the law.

 

The sale of leaded fuel has been mostly banned in the US since 1996, but exemptions exist for auto racing, if you can believe that planet destroying nonsense.

 

NASCAR continues to this day to use lead additives even though there was a widespread lead pandemic at the California Speedway on February 25, 2007, which led to concerns about the health of fans and neighboring residents exposed to the lead-laden car fumes. Lead is a well-known environmental risk, but the performance needs of race engines somehow trumps all other concerns.

 

The Rest of the Problems

I could spend days yapping about all the problems, but we’ve got a whole page dedicated to that, so I’ll spare you the details and just give you the short version.

 

Detriments to NASCAR include: gasoline waste during a fuel crisis; noise pollution; lead pollution in the air and water; heavy metal waste from disposal of certain race products; CFC and greenhouse gas emissions that go “legally” unchecked; spilling of hazardous fluids such as coolant, motor oil, transmission fluid and gasoline; burning of tire rubber in accelerating, decelerating and showing off; pollution from burning of plastic, synthetic rubber and carbon fiber in the course of a burning crash; asbestos brake powder, countless tons of garbage creation even though recycling options are readily available; drain caused on taxpayers and benevolent corporations; destruction of ecosphere, habitat, habisphere and ecotat; non-green construction of venues, tracks are rarely used; event related drunk driving and domestic violence occurrences; economic drain on already strained lowest class; social distraction from most worrisome woes; and trophies are not manufactured domestically, but rather in China where wages border on “slave” and environmental standards are lax to the point of non-existent for your faux gold coating.