| Driving to an End: NASCAR’s Impact on the Environment- 11/28/07 I hate NASCAR. Hate it. I can see cars driving anywhere and at any time. The last thing I want to do is watch 500 miles of it on a track that goes nowhere. Yes, I have heard it all, “It’s the environment and the people surrounding the race”, and “THEY ARE JUST SO FAST, IT’S AWESOME”. I get it. Not to knock these…drivers? I certainly can’t call them athletes, though what they do is very dangerous. But I just feel that it takes no athletic skill to drive a car at high speeds. Maybe I just haven’t done it, but I feel that it has more to do with mental awareness and attentiveness. But that is not the real thing that bugs me about NASCAR. With all the talk today about Global Warming and oil consumption, I have yet to hear anything about the “sport” that harms the environment on a regular basis. Let us start with fuel consumption. According to NASCAR itself, approximately 6,000 gallons of fuel are used during a normal Nextel Cup race. 6,000. With 36 races during a NASCAR season, the number is scary. My Corolla gets approximately 28-32 miles per gallon. The average NASCAR racecar? Two to five miles per gallon. And here’s an interesting fact. Did you know that NASCAR vehicles are, for the most part, unregulated by the Environmental Protection Agency? This includes not having to use mufflers, catalytic converters or other emissions control devices. The amount of fuel used and the resulting air pollution is not the only environmental impact. We must also remember the people attending the race as spectators, or just as tailgaters. The Talladega Superspeedway has a capacity of approximately 175,000 people. That is more than the populations’ of Andorra and Liechtenstein combined. Think of how much trash that creates. Cigarette butts, soda and beer cans, any and every type of food wrapper, and portable toilets as far as the eye can see. With that amount of garbage created during every race, I am surprised that each speedway does not have a landfill right next to the track. But I cannot fault them completely, NASCAR has started to change their environmental ways. For instance, NASCAR’s tire supplier Goodyear immediately shreds tires on site. They then recycle the tire shreds and use it as composite material. NASCAR also has teamed up with Safety-Kleen, a company that recycles oil, re-refines motor oil, and is able to properly dispose of brake fluid, oil filters, coolant and cleaning solvents. I never thought that a spectator “sport” could cause so much environmental trouble. NASCAR is on their way to making their competition more eco-friendly, but they still have a long way to go. However, without more pressure from organizations like the EPA or fans themselves, NASCAR’s environmental impacts will never be as controlled as they need to be. |
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