Inaugural Green Challenge Takes Checkered Flag: It's not easy being green

The American Le Mans Series may have had to resort to killing a tree or two to convey the unfolding saga of its inaugural Petit Le Mans Green Challenge - the dedicated electronic scoring system crashed, forcing press officers to issue updates on paper - but the end result was at once intriguing and a validation of the eco-conscious competition envisioned by the ALMS, SAE International, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy.

After all, during practice and qualifying for the event, conventional wisdom suggested that the cars running diesel and cellulosic E85 ethanol had a virtual lock on a competition based on the amount of energy used, the amount of greenhouse gases emitted and the amount of petroleum displaced. But by the race's end, not only did Team Penske's E10-fueled Porsche RS Spyder win the Green Challenge's prototype category, it did so while finishing behind three diesel-powered prototypes in the overall race classification. What's more, the Green Challenge-winning Porsche finished behind its identical sister car in the overall results.

While some might conclude that meant the Green Challenge-winning Porsche ran a "fuel economy" race, they would be wrong.

"The scoring formula worked exactly the way we intended," says Bob Larson, of the DoE and Argonne National Laboratories and the primary author of the SAE's Green Racing protocols. "Some people saw this as a fuel challenge. That is not the case. It is a competition to see how fast you can go while creating the smallest environmental footprint.

"The average speed of the (Green Challenge) winning Porsche while it was on the racetrack was faster than the average speed of the car behind it: (i.e., the Porsche that finished second in the Green Challenge but ahead of it in the main race). We wanted that, we didn't want people just cruising around."

That said, the winner in the GT category - the Corvette C6.R piloted by Johnny O'Connell and Jan Magnussen - outscored the Porsches on Green Challenge points 20.391 to 30.690, in no small part because it ran on E85 which, drop for drop, gallon for gallon, has a smaller environmental footprint than E10. That's a point not lost on O'Connell.

"Winning the Green Challenge was definitely important to our team," said O'Connell. "One of our sponsors is E85. We run cellulosic E85 in our racecars and Chevrolet builds more cars that get 30 miles per gallon than any other automotive manufacturer."

The recent gasoline shortages in nearby Atlanta made winning the Green Challenge particularly relevant to Porsche race driver Patrick Long, co-driver of the Green Challenge winning Porsche.

"Fuel mileage and all the technology Porsche has put into the new (direct injection) engine really helped out here," he said. "It's a great time to be the first winners of the Green Challenge given everything that's going on in the environment and the economy and especially with what's hit Atlanta this past week. There's certainly a lot of environmental give-back that we need to give in technology and development. I think Porsche and Penske were dominant on the racetrack and the most environmentally friendly at the same time."

And what works on the racetrack, is destined to be incorporated into the cars we buy and drive on the roads of America.

"The manufacturers and the teams that came here… demonstrated, really for the very first time, the technologies that are used in the very severe conditions of the American Le Mans Racing Series and maintain performance," said Margo T. Oge, Director of the Office of Transportation and Air Quality, Environmental Protection Agency. "If these technologies can survive the severe conditions of this race, then they can survive in the cars that you and I drive for work and to the store every day."