by xe

Created on: April 12, 2009   Last Updated: April 16, 2009

The amount of fuel consumed at NASCAR Races is so minimal in the big picture that it hardly seems worth discussing. Compared to the gas not consumed because those fans are not mowing their lawns that weekend, it may actually be a gas savings overall. But in the event that it is significant, we should investigate ways to we reduce gas consumption associated with NASCAR Racing.

There are several areas of gas consumption connected to this question and we can address them one by one. These topics include: fuel consumed by the racing cars during the race; fuel consumed by fans by attending the race and fuel consumed by support vehicles during the racing weekend.

Initially, we look at the race cars themselves and the gasoline they consume directly. There are, over a period of the racing weekend, numerous practice sessions, a qualifying session and the actual race. In the United States of America, the NASCAR fan will not accept the substitution of go-carts for real cars for these events.

As a fan who experienced the 24 hours of LeMans the year that Cale Yarborough campaigned several Camaros in the event, racing sounds in America come from cubic inches and horsepower. Not from liters and tiny glorified lawn-mower engines, even if the speeds are close. At three in the morning, standing along Mulsanne, I could always tell with pride when American horsepower was coming!

One simple way to reduce the amount of gas used would be to not allow any practice at all. Of course, since a number of the fans who will continue to attend races come for the entre weekend, that is not an acceptable solution. We could turn the races into mileage competitions.

Oh Wait, several of the teams currently use that strategy and have become the laughing-stock of the sport as a result, even if they win races by doing so. We could skip the first 490 miles or so and just go to a 'Green-White-Checkered' format for the race.

A great deal of fuel would be saved if we just had the cars go 1000 feet in a straight line, instead of all that wasteful extra distance and turning and stuff, but then that wouldn't be NASCAR, now would it.

Fan fuel consumption is being addressed this year by the economic crisis itself. Greedy bankers and short-sighted investment gamblers have trashed the general economy to such a dire extent that fewer fans will be able to enjoy what for them might have been their big summer weekend of pleasure. Somehow, I think of that as about as good as the idea that massive unemployment is good because fewer people start their cars to drive to and from work.

Finally, all of the support vehicles. I suppose we could do away with the safety vehicles. Who needs ambulances and fire trucks? The drivers know it is a dangerous sport, don't they?

Actually, eliminating horse racing to get rid of the tiny bit of pollution it creates is a higher priority for me than the statistically miniscule amount of gas used in NASCAR Racing. I would much rather see a campaign to eliminate the use of lawn mowers.

Besides, when fans go to races, they aren't home mowing the grass, now are they? If a person has never attended a NASCAR event and felt the thunder of those 43 cars roaring by, then how could they know what NASCAR racing horsepower really means?

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