Indy 500 Goes Green

This year's Indianapolis 500 is set to include a number of firsts, from a woman driver with a legitimate chance to win to competing cars using ethanol fuel.

Indy 500 Goes Green Chris Hanson: That’s Emerson Fittipaldi, two-time winner of Indianapolis 500 talking about how he plans to drive the Corvette’s ZO-6 Ace car at this year’s race. This year the race cars as well as the case car will be using Ethanol fuel made from plant material grown right here in the U.S. Emerson Fittipaldi: It would be honor for me to drive back in Indianapolis. The Corvette of V8-5 will be a lot of fun. It will be a very important message to the world how to know it is good, and how to know it is efficient. Chris Hanson: In Emerson’s home country of Brazil, 90% of car sold are flexed- fuel meaning they can run on gasoline or Ethanol or any combination of both. Emerson Fittipaldi: We’re going to fame in other countries. The energy is renewably energy. It generates a lot of jobs in vicinities of Brazil and the developed areas. I see its win to win situation of the country and by America do the same. Chris Hanson: 100% of the vehicles General Motors built in Brazil are flexed-fuel and has produced over 3 million E-85 flexed-fuel vehicles in the U.S. Beth Lowery: Well, we really learned a lot from Brazil. It’s really important they have gotten it right with respect to the vehicles. So, we have 90 to 100% of our vehicles run an E-100 in Brazil. We have good production of Ethanol from sugarcane. It’s a very efficient process that reduces CO2 emissions and uses all of the energy associated with it and then we have distribution across Brazil. So, they got all three pieces right; the vehicles, the production of Ethanol, as well as distribution. I think it’s a very important lesson for the United States. Chris Hanson: The gas Ethanol has higher octane than gas. Fittipaldi says it will have fuel trouble getting to the 120 miles per hour. This Corvette will need to pace the race. In fact on this practice day, he was topping out at 185. I’m Chris Hanson.