January 6, 2023 - Update In Motorsport Resiliency ;-)

Daytona Beach  Daily  Courier  Dispatch  Post  Gazette

January 6, 2023 

[Daytona Beach, FL]  As gas mileage ratings for personal automobiles have climbed and consumers have slimmed down the size of their vehicles and the lengths of personal trips, public questions linger about the use of fossil fuels for recreational purposes.  A national paradox still persists between the public’s increased fuel conservation efforts and continued motorsport vehicle fuel consumption.

Recent surveys reiterate the dramatic decade-long downturn in recreational use of fossil fuels.  Critical climate change effects and the expense of gas has convinced Americans that the use of engines for pleasure is not only unnecessary, but unethical.  (Regardless of the bio-fuel fiasco of 2015)

Lakes and rivers across the nation are nearly clear of power boats and jet skies, as paddles and oars and sails have taken over.  The absence of dune buggies and four-wheelers, some of the first vehicles to be discarded in favor of a healthier atmosphere, are enabling a slow healing of former desert and back-woods trails.  

Unfortunately, this is not the scenario for motorsport racing events.  Corporate recreation is hanging on.  Even though Nascar and other major race organizations are installing solar panels and are recycling beer cans at the track, burning fossil fuels @ 5mpg for spectator gratification is ongoing.  

Attendance at auto racing events has, however, dwindled in past years even as bicycle parking spaces have increased at track parking lots.  Though “green facilities” greet race-goers, many fans are realizing that their love of this carbon-sport is counter productive to their grandchildren’s quality of life.

However, lacking voluntary reduction efforts within the industry, the following auto racing organizations have now been requested to down-size this year and close operations within 18 months, ordered by Secretary of the US Department of Carbon Dioxide, Chelsea Clinton. 

These motorsport events include:

Formula Racing (F1)

Auto Cross

Demolition Derbies

Stock car racing (NASCAR)

Dirt Track Racing

Drifting Events

Sports Car Racing 

Off-Road Racing

Midget Car Racing

Mini Sprints

Monster Truck Events

Pick-Up Truck Racing

Road Racing

Drag Racing

Motocross/ Dirt Bike Racing

Vale Ernshart, who drives the Flaring Exxon Car #13 and is former winner of the Ultimate Tar Sands Challenge, blames scrutiny of motorsports on radical millennial parents who have steered their children toward energy resiliency.

“The personal thrill of burning rubber and high-octane fuel should not be denied our youth’s quest for speed and daring competition,” commented Vale as he ran to catch an Indianapolis metro bus in front of the track. “It’s just one last strong remnant of true American spirit, that’s all…”

~

In related news, the Daytona International Speedway has submitted plans to the city to construct permanent flood walls around its track.  At 19 feet above sea level and three miles from the Atlantic shoreline, investors have requested this barrier to insure racing at the track as sea level rises.

Slower Starts: It Needs To Be A Life Model

There is more to life than increasing speed.

Gandhi

Mercedes has just put me over the top with one of its commercials. It illustrates how its SUV has been tested to scale the vertical rock face of Yosemite, churn out of desert sands, and squeal, spin and skid 180's like police officer driver school. This is to reassure the buying public that the vehicle is field-ready for calm and safe family driving. The ending fade shows the SUV driving quietly and comfortably down a country road into the sunset.  (Updates @ end of this post)

The supposed intent of the commercial? "We build strong and safe vehicles."  The requisite sales message? "Wait till you see what this baby can really do!!" 


Think acceleration.


Along with many other facets of life, we are obsessed with getting there faster.  The destination; the unobstructed endpoint.  


But, the thing that gets in our way is the stopping en route. Stopping messes up our trips. It interrupts the momentum of getting there. There might be repeated stopping during a series of errands. There might be stopping to drop off one passenger at a soccer field before picking up another at school before the end of the game at the soccer field. Construction, pedestrians, dropping off the video, Johnny has to pee, need to get gas, school bus has its red lights flashing. And, the most frustrating enemy of momentum seems to be the legally regulated stops, like octagonal signs and red lights and toll boothes. (Got EZPass?) Honestly, stopping becomes a holy irritant in the journey to destination. Witness road rage on clogged freeways. 


Slow down. Not your velocity: Your life. 


How do we handle this annoyance of loss of momentum?? We accelerate quickly. In an attempt to make up for said stop(s), there is this need to recover time and regain speed. (Acceleration, of course can mean either the increase in velocity or the decrease in velocity.)

Fast acceleration can be an impatience issue. Impatience can frazzle concentration and rational driving skills, and lead to greater instances of knee jerk decisions and driving error. If the flow of accelerating traffic is uneven, faster accelerators may and do become even more impatient. Watch out.  


Quick acceleration is a large fossil fuel issue because more gasoline is used in a shorter amount of time and distance. To begin forward momentum of a vehicle from a standing stop takes lots of work/energy; hence fuel to power the engine. (It can take 20 percent more fuel to accelerate from a full stop than from 5 miles per hour.)*


Advocates of fuel-efficient driving have always taught that you anticipate traffic lights ahead of you to decrease the amount of accelerating from a full stop. Ride the "green wave," not the jack rabbit.  If you let up and slow down to arrive at an intersection as the light is turning green, you have a better chance of simply cruising into lesser acceleration while consuming less fuel. Driving easy. Driving with energy in mind.

Now, I grew up in the early '60's listening to Jan and Dean and the Beach Boys and Ronny and the Daytonas.  Cars, speed, and, especially, acceleration.

"Turn it on, wind it up, blow it out,
GTO!"
             "GTO"  Ronny and the Daytonas

"My fuel-injected Stingray and an XKE,
Revving up their engines and it sounds real mean."
             “Shutdown”  Beach Boys

"We both popped the clutch when the light turned green,
You shoulda heard the whine from my screamin' machine."
            "Deadman’s Curve" Jan and Dean

"When the flag went down, you could hear rubber burn,
The Stingray pulled me going into the turn."
            “Hey Little Cobra" Rip Chords

"Burn up that quarter mile…"
            "Drag City"  Jan and Dean

It was an age of drag racing on tracks and off.  Fuel injection. Drag slicks. Hurst shifters. I was enamoured as a kid and that power and noise has stuck with me to a certain degree. How fast can that thing get off the line? And dragging wasn't new at that time. There was James Dean and small town races after sundown in the 1950's.


We still obsess with over-acceleration as an act of strength, superiority, unquestioned testosterone. Admit it, there are moments of acceleration angst when waiting for a green with a dozen other cars. How will I respond in the rush of the green?  Are the others in distain of my Prius? Will someone use their vehicle to vent a frustration at the intersection?


Racing and acceleration are not taboos, of course. It's a natural human activity to race. A key to racing is the acceleration off the blocks. Run, swim, ride a horse, ski, paddle, bike.  But racing with fossil fuels needs to be harnessed relative to the rationing of oil. (I won't even reference oil rigs in the Gulf.) Constricted vehicular usage will be a norm in the future. The earlier we consciously change small habits, the sooner we model for future drivers. The ones watching us. 


Slowing down the lifestyle, BTW, can't hurt…


~ ~ ~ ~ 






I'm tracking television car commercials that reinforce unnecessary and wasteful acceleration…they're on the increase; a sick paradox.   (This is a tough assignment, as I don't watch much TV)

6/9/10:  Lexus
6/10/10 Cadillac
6/12/10 Jeep Grand Cherokee
6/21/10 the reincarnation of the muscle car (?): Mustang
7/31/10 Chevrolet Corvette
10/31/10  Nissan JUKE "Sport Cross"
11/8/10  Mazda 3i Sport
11/9/10  Hyundai Sonata Turbo
11/18/10  Cadillac CTX
2/6/11  Chevy Camero, Mercedes, BMW
2/10/11 Dodge Journey, Caddy CTSV Coupe
2/11/11 Range Rover Sport, Infinity QX
2/12/11 Saab 95, Kia Optima
2/21/11 Dodge Journey and Dodge Charger (major emphasis)
2/21/11 Mustang continuation
3/2/11  CT Lexus Hybrid
3/3/11  Dodge Durango
5/20/11 Mercedes (major)
6/9/11 Cadillac; Mazda
6/17/11 BMW 6 Series
6/21/11 Buick Regal Turbo
7/20/11 Cadillac; Mercedes
7/24/11 Nissan; Range Rover
7/28/11 Infiniti
8/11/11 Dodge Durango
9/15/11 Dodge Ram 1500
9/22/11 BMW
9/25/11 Mazda Speed-3
10/2/11 Cadillac CTSV (new MANUAL trans to improve acceleration- Seriously?)
10/5/11 KIA Optima - (the high speed/braking sideways routine)
10/31/11 Toyota Camry
12/22/11 Cadillac
12/22/11 BMW ("Drive Intelligence"?)
12/27/11 Mazda
1/12/12   BMW 5 Series Sedan
1/15/12   Lexus IS
1/20/12   KIA Optima again
2/1/12    Cadillac SRX
2/2/12    Jaguar
2/10/12   Infinity
2/15/12   Mazda - obsene
2/23/12   Lexus - extreme obsene
2/27/12   Accura TC
2/29/12   BMW
3/1/12     Do you wonder why we increasingly jeopardize the climate? Corporate irresponsibilities to fossil fuels, like these…
3/2/12     Chrysler 200
3/2/12     Mazda - dredging up speed from the good 'ole 50's & 60's
3/3/12     2013 Lexus  -  flaming/screaming acceleration
8/18/13   Cadillac SRX ("North America's Car of the Year")
9/25/13   (these have shown up as a pack in the past couple weeks!)
              Mercedes CLA
              Dodge Dart II  (?!?)
              Lexus
              Range Rover (still slicing up and dominating nature…)
              BMW X1
              Volvo 
8/14/14  Still at it!
              Ford Pick-up (obscene)

The Future Of A Shrinking Geography

Americans live on a huge chunk of geography. It’s one of the reasons we have evolved such an unfortunate dependency on the passenger vehicle.

                          College road trip! Thanksgiving weekend, 1975. Round trip from 

Cleveland to Atlanta. We drove 1,400 miles.

As the infant USA pushed its borders further West onto American Indian Land, European settlers satisfied their curiosities by moving further into wilderness.

In 1983 I spent three months traveling to Alaska and through the Great West. Madison to Fairbanks to San Diego to Madison: 9,207 miles.

Word spread in the 19^th century that a new country was open to settlement. Immense European emigration followed, enlarging Eastern cities and states and extending into the old Louisiana Purchase. 

I attended four years of college in Ohio; 746 miles round trip from home in Buffalo, NY. Sixteen round trips during the college career (girlfriend was in Buffalo). 11,936 miles.

Freedom of travel within the United States and the installation of the railroad allowed individuals to come and go to all corners of the nation. Members of family units found themselves living in different regions.

I’ve lived in Madison, WI for thirty years, while my parents remain in Buffalo, which is a 1,380 mile round trip. My brother has lived in New York City for this time period @ 1,930 miles per round trip. My sister lived for a time in Laramie, WY. That’s 1,914 miles round trip.

The automobile industry begged for the Great Roads Project of the early 1900’s (begun by bicycle proponents) and later the Interstate Highway System of the mid-1950’s. The network of concrete and macadam across the nation became more and more dense. (47,000 miles of I-System alone as of 2006)

My last guzzler, a GMC van, had 213,932 on the odometer when it was traded 4 years ago. It had 92,000 when I bought it. I owned it for 7 years. You do the math.

A Few More Zeroes for Good Measure -

The current average annual mileage for a passenger car is 12,334, a number collected from 247,000,000 registered passenger vehicles. Of course, some of these cars sit the full year in a barn while others are out ticking off 100,000 miles. We all sit somewhere in between. (1960 = 9,000 miles per vehicle.) 

Total miles driven by passenger vehicles in the USA per year is this obese figure: 3,049,047,000,000

Groping ad nauseam through these and other statistics, we know that the automobile is embedded and in control of our daily movements, both local and distant. The fuel consumed, the emissions ejected, the infrastructures that cover natural spaces, and our mobile life styles are well beyond near-future sustainability. CAUTION is not just another road sign.

Shrinking Down -


So, what would be the effect, then, of sizing-down distances in everyone’s lives? What if, overnight, the interstate highway system evaporated into thin air; our quick-track roadways to everywhere were eliminated. Imagine, for a moment, that our personal borders were condensed to the size of Portugal or Ireland or Costa Rica or Cambodia. Of course, people travel outside their country boundaries for many reasons, but typical cultural movements of life can fit into these national borders. 

What if United States automobile mobility ranges were generally reduced to the size of our own states? Choices for colleges remained closer to home. Choices of work were based on a maximum radius from the home town. Family members settled within closer proximities. Consumer goods were available locally. Choices of recreation were aimed at one’s own region. Multiple-car families were reduced.  Multiple-rider trips were rewarded. Mass transit alternatives were networked within the region.

Think of the unrenewable fossil fuels and emissions that could be conserved; will need to be conserved.


To prepare for the tightening of oil availability in the near future, families and individuals will need to concentrate on this shrinking geography lifestyle. The sooner shorter distance patterns are established the easier a future transition may be. We can't sustain that three trillion mile figure above.