The first person to respond to my first two columns about alternative or green fuels in racing was Gerald Forsythe. The long-time Champ Car team owner and co-owner of the Champ Car organisation is a champion of ethanol. Forsythe wants Champ Car to switch next year to ethanol E85 rather than the 100 percent ethanol which the IRL has adopted this year.
The Illinois industrialist and entrepreneur is convinced E85 ethanol will play an increasingly important role in the American fuel market over the next ten years and Forsythe strongly disagrees with Honda’s Robert Clarke about hydrogen fuel cell technology. He doesn’t see much of a future for hydrogen fuel for many years to come.
“I’m glad you picked up on the subject because it’s right in front of us,” Forsythe commented. “I disagree with the Honda guy completely. I don’t believe hydrogen fuel will be a factor in powering automobiles here in the United States in my lifetime. It may be in Japan, but I understand that Japan recently contracted to purchase a large chunk of ethanol production from Brazil. Somebody over there thinks ethanol has a future.”
Forsythe says there’s no debate that E85 (85 percent ethanol) is the blend that will dominate the market. “I don’t know why people are talking about E10 or E55, or even E100,” he remarked. “None of that is on the market. E85 is what’s going to be on the market. That’s what’s going to be promoted and I think that’s what Champ Car should be going to. It smells good and it’s more pleasant than gasoline or methanol and it’s going to be the most heavily marketed alternative fuel for quite a few years to come.”
The United States and Brazil are the world’s leading ethanol producers. In 2006, the USA surpassed Brazil to become the globe’s largest ethanol producer, manufacturing 4.8 million gallons compared to Brazil’s 4.5 million. Forsythe has an economic interest in ethanol’s success because he owns an interest in fourteen of the nation’s 116 biofuel processing plants.
