Response 7: Fast Food

NASCAR has been one of the biggest growing competitions in the United States, with cars zooming by at a couple hundred miles per hour things can get pretty exciting.  Unfortunately all of those cars are burning gasoline and putting out so much CO₂, you might as well have gone on that road-trip instead of going to the race.  Across the United States Americans are all driving gas guzzling cars and trucks, and NASCAR is no exception.  Europe has been way ahead of America for greener transportation going to itty-bitty cars, high gas taxes, and huge public transportation systems.  They didn’t feel like stopping there, to better get the attention of the United States (and the world) they went and built a completely eco-friendly formula one racecar.

            The engineers at Warwick Innovative Manufacturing Research Center in England have built the world’s greenest racecar, and they don’t mean its color.  They call their racecar the WorldFirst F3, and it has a two-liter biodiesel engine that runs off of left over vegetable oil from frying fish and chips.  The car has been clocked at 135 miles per hour and the engineers are back to work at cutting the car new gears to hit the 160 miles per hour mark.  The car is worth $250,000, not exactly what you would want to go out and pay for at the dealer.  But this car has the words new, exciting, and innovative written all over it, so who know by the time today’s baby’s are turning sixteen they all might be driving one of these completely green cars.

            It is a complete green car not just because of what it runs on.  The steering wheel is made from carrot fibers hardened in eco-safe resin, the wing mirror is made of potato starch, the body is completed with recycled plastic bottles and carbon fiber, the seat from soybean oil and recycled polyester foam, and brakes made of cashew shells.  And that is not all, the engine is lubed with plant oil and the radiators are coated with BASF PremAIR (converting ground level ozone to oxygen).  This car is completely new, and with hope is the start of a greener transportation system and a greater greener spectator sport as well.