US Drag Racer Touts Ethanol at Breakneck Speed
Date: 29-Sep-06
Country: US
Author: Chris Baltimore
If it covers a quarter-mile (0.4 km) of asphalt in under six seconds and spews exhaust that smells like french fries, it must be Mark Thomas in his lime-green, ethanol-powered funny car.
This weekend, Thomas' 2006 Chevrolet Monte Carlo faces off against fossil fuel-burning competitors at the Maryland International Raceway in Mechanicsville.
But earlier this week he was a stone's throw from the US Capitol to display his car at an event during which Midwestern lawmakers like Republican Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio extolled the virtues of the corn-derived fuel.
An International Hot Rod Association driver with five world champion titles, Thomas and his "Ethanol Performs" team have relied on ethanol for 17 years. His competitors use methanol, which is usually fossil fuel-based.
But surging crude oil prices and a push by US lawmakers to focus on home-grown energy sources like ethanol have made Thomas a star with not only race fans but also politicians.
"We've been promoting ethanol for 17 years," Thomas said, sporting a green race suit that matches his car. "Now everybody loves it -- before nobody cared. It's the new American revolution."
Thomas showed off a glass jar filled with the clear liquid and offered to let fans smell the fuel, which has the same chemical composition of moonshine, distilled from corn mash.
But he won't be drinking the best and driving the rest, as some ethanol producers used to say when the fuel first became popular in the late 1970s.
"I don't drink," Thomas said.
The event was backed by the National Corn Growers Association, the Renewable Fuels Association and the Ohio Corn Growers Association, which have all urged Congress to boost incentives to refine and burn gasoline made from US farm-grown products like corn and soybeans.
Thomas is a farmer himself -- his family farm in Louisville, Ohio, grows corn and soybeans and has 450 Holstein cows.
The fuel in the car's 9-gallon (34-litre) tank is not from his own corn because "most of the stuff that I grow goes to feed my cows," Thomas said.
The car burns 6 gallons (23 litres) of ethanol in its quarter-mile dash down the track, giving it a fuel efficiency of about 24 gallons (91 litres) per mile (1.6 km) -- or 73 yards (67 metres) to the gallon.
That's much worse than even the thirstiest sport utility vehicle, "but you'll get there really fast," Thomas said.