NASCAR Media And Ethanol Reality (Updated)

Fans watching the NASCAR.com live stream of the Myers Brothers luncheon last Thursday from Las Vegas saw something very interesting. Amid the checks and awards being handed out to drivers and crew chiefs, NASCAR Chairman Brian France took the podium.

His professionally-crafted message included a video presentation, a patriotic theme and several guests. France offered a hard sell of what has become a personal mission for the chairman. It was all about American ethanol. Click here to see the presentation.

It was 2007 when IndyCar promoted that its top series would run totally on US ethanol in a major political move fronted by the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council (EPIC). Today, the IndyCar Series gets 100% of its ethanol from Brazil and the abandoned EpicInfo.com website can be yours for $2,495 from HugeDomains.com.

The new group fronting US ethanol and partnering with NASCAR in a six year high-dollar promotion is called Growth Energy. Click here for the organization's website. A big part of the new venture and pictured above is retired four-star US Army General Wesley Clark. His message last Thursday about increasing US ethanol consumption included the fact it would help "national security."

All types of media organizations covering NASCAR, energy issues and the ethanol industry passed along the message delivered at the luncheon. Click here for the Growth Energy Facebook page and that carries the same message.

Click here for a rather different take on the proceedings. Michael Knight is a veteran PR and media type with a long history in IndyCar and motorsports.

Here is an excerpt from Knight's blog:

Color NASCAR’s second Sprint Cup awards activities in Las Vegas green. But, for a few moments last Thursday, I was trying so hard to keep from laughing that I was close to blue.

What had me amused, other legitimate considerations aside, this clearly was at least an indirect shot at the IndyCar Series. NASCAR has many ways to play the racing political game and in the aftermath of the unhappy IndyCar-International Speedway Corp. split, this was an example of who still has the muscle in the U.S. motorsports industry.

Remember, when IndyCar went to ethanol a few years ago it was using corn ethanol in association with a U.S. trade group (EPIC). When said trade organization went belly-up, IndyCar had to go to Brazil for its ethanol.

Now NASCAR has staked its claim to the red, white and blue benefits of green and that’s no coincidence. It’s a political shot across the bow of the IndyCar series. NASCAR is even copying IndyCar’s E-logo on the green flag.

Knight seems skeptical of France's claim that the environment is actually driving the Growth Energy deal. So, let's take a look at two ethanol stories. Dr. Diandra Leslie-Pelecky is the author of The Physics of NASCAR: The Science behind the Speed.

Click here to read her take on the ethanol issue. Here is an excerpt:

It is very difficult to find anyone in the energy field who will argue that corn ethanol is a sustainable fuel or a wise choice for the future. Corn is a high-maintenance energy source and virtually no one not associated with the corn lobby is arguing that making corn production more efficient will make enough of a dent in the problem to be worthwhile.

Now let’s look at the argument that ethanol is a cleaner burning fuel. Ethanol produces less carbon dioxide per gallon than gasoline; however, since ethanol only contains 2/3 the energy (gallon for gallon), you have to use more ethanol than gasoline to go the same distance. By the time you factor in those two issues, pure ethanol actually produces more carbon dioxide than pure gasoline when you compare carbon dioxide produced per energy.

Three days after posting the article and then appearing on NASCAR Sirius channel 128 to discuss the ethanol issue, Dr. Diandra posted this on her Twitter account:

If you are following me for NASCAR, please unfollow, as I won't be tweeting about NASCAR any more in the future. Thanks.

For many years, Dr. Diandra was a fan and media favorite for NASCAR topics explained from a scientific perspective. She has not posted on the Building Speed blog or returned to address any NASCAR topics since that day.

Many consider the 2008 Time Magazine story titled The Clean Energy Scam by Michael Grunwald a definitive piece on the reality of ethanol. Click here to read the article.

Here are some sentences from the Grunwald piece that leap off the page:

Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous.

The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year.

The lesson behind the math is that on a warming planet, land is an incredibly precious commodity, and every acre used to generate fuel is an acre that can't be used to generate the food needed to feed us or the carbon storage needed to save us.

Update 1PM ET 12/6/10: Here are two more links passed along by readers that address this topic:

Click here for the Denver Post story: Tide Ebbing For Ethanol?

This is stunning: "Producers of ethanol made from corn receive 73 cents to provide an amount of biofuel with the energy equivalent to that in one gallon of gasoline."

That's 73 cents in federal tax subsidies, says the Congressional Budget Office — or 45 cents for every gallon of ethanol blended into gasoline.

Click here for the New York Times story: Gore Riles Corn Ethanol Lobby

“First-generation ethanol, I think, was a mistake. The energy conversion ratios are at best very small,” Al Gore said. “It’s hard once such a program is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going.”

Right now, the NASCAR partnership with Growth Energy is just a series of announcements and media releases. Most of us only know that E:85 from Sunoco works fine in the gas tanks of our cars but not too well in everything from string trimmers to boat engines.

The upcoming rule changes in the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series were set to be the key media stories of 2011. Instead, when France reappears on January 21 at Daytona to preview the season, it may well be questions about what goes in the fuel tanks of NASCAR's top three series that generate the headlines.

We welcome your comments on this topic. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thank you for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.

Did You Watch The Sprint Cup Series Banquet?

Over the past several years, there have been many changes to the Sprint Cup Series post-season awards show. Now taking place at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, there is a still a substantial buzz that in order to support the struggling NASCAR Hall of Fame, the festivities may be shifting to Charlotte, NC in the future.

On the TV front, NASCAR finally relieved ESPN from the task of trying to slip "the banquet" into a December line-up of college and pro sports. Fans may remember that the awards show had actually been bumped to the infamous ESPN Classic Network.

Last year, SPEED had the rights to televise the banquet fall into the network's lap at the last minute. The scramble that ensued resulted in some off-balance coverage and some hard feelings among fans and the media. SPEED had promoted the coverage as live, but thanks to social media like Twitter and Facebook, fans quickly learned most of the coverage was not.

This year, things are going to be a bit different. The challenge for television is that the post-season banquet consists of parts that don't lend themselves to TV. Take a room full of people eating dinner, for instance. SPEED has to take the start of the festivities and somehow connect it to the awards and performance parts that come later.

SPEED will be recording interviews with those attending as they walk down the hallway into the gala. It's always fun to see NASCAR personalities out of their comfort zone and speaking without a Teleprompter. It's also nice to feature some wives and girlfriends on this special night.

Those red carpet interviews from Krista Voda and Kenny Wallace will be mixed with some edited features helping to recap the season and highlight some memorable moments. Steve Byrnes and Jeff Hammond will be hosting this part of the program. Hopefully, the interviews will be a new and exciting part of the telecast.

Once TV goes inside the room, it will once again be Voda and Mike Joy hosting the on-stage portion and directing traffic during the awards ceremony. This year, SPEED will carry Martina McBride singing the national anthem to open the banquet. That will be quite a change from the anthems viewers had to endure this season.

The other artists appearing on SPEED will be Rascal Flatts, Colbie Caillat, Eric Lewis and the Las Vegas version of Cirque de Soleil in a show appropriately called Viva Elvis. Comedian Frank Caliendo will once again be appearing in a comedy and hosting role.

During the season, SPEED covers qualifying by using what we have come to call the "TiVo" method. To make sure every car is seen on TV, SPEED continues recording and calling the action while viewers are away in commercial. After the break, the TV crew just hits play on the DVR and the coverage picks up right where it left off.

In terms of the banquet, SPEED has the same challenge. Just like qualifying, the awards presentations and speeches do not pause for TV timeouts. It's up to SPEED to break away to commercial, continue recording the live action and then just press play out of the commercial break.

The good thing is that NASCAR fans will get to see everything that happens. The thing that may upset some folks is that this format pushes the live action slowly back until there is a delay between what is actually happening live and the TV coverage. It's a no-win for TV. Show it live and miss the action in the commercials or show everything and get slightly delayed.

Since we know the finishing order of the top ten, there are going to be few surprises along the way. I would rather get to see all the content and wind-up later than the live action as opposed to missing two or three minutes of content during every single commercial.

No matter what the arguments of the past have been, NASCAR needs to design portions of this evening with live TV, radio and online video streaming in mind. It's an interactive social media world and this event could be huge if done correctly.

If you have ever wanted to try Twitter, which is free by the way, Friday would be a great day to sign-up. It's fast, easy and the program can appear on your phone, iPad, laptop or desktop. There will be a ton of reporters, team reps, relatives and fans sending all kinds of unique pictures before, during and after the event.

We will use this post to offer comments on the prerecorded Nationwide and Camping World Truck series banquet show at 7PM as well as the 9PM Sprint Cup Series program. To add your comment on this topic, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by, it's been a long season and we appreciate your participation.

NASCAR's Got A Sirius Situation

As we head toward the banquet and the official close of the 2010 season, we have used the last couple of days to review big agenda items.

Since 2007 we have been thumping NASCAR, Turner Sports and Sirius XM Radio pretty hard on one issue. The Sirius XM NASCAR channel 128 has never been available online. All those interviews, all those races and all that conversation and debate has been transmitted to only a sliver of the NASCAR fan base.

Sirius XM technology continues to be installed in vehicles and also made available through receivers where a satellite downlink is possible. While the total number of Sirius XM subscribers is put at 20 million, the real number Sirius XM has in mind is much bigger. An educated guess at the number of Americans regularly using the Internet is over 200 million and growing rapidly.

Sirius XM has a nice little online audio application that is easy to use and very portable. The original idea was to capture the laptop and desktop market, but there was a problem. Up to now, three big pieces of the Sirius XM pie were missing. NASCAR, the NFL and Howard Stern were nowhere to be found online.

While Stern continues to negotiate with Sirius XM on this topic, one big domino has finally fallen. The NFL has just signed a deal to bring live games to Sirius XM next season and online streaming is included.

Here are some excerpts on this topic from Spencer Osborne of the SiriusBuzz website:

The news here is the addition of on-line streaming beginning with the 2011 NFL season. This gives Sirius XM Radio a unique advantage with content that is otherwise unavailable through many other platforms or services.

Getting the NFL deal done was an important step that will allow Sirius XM to carry content that many of their competitors simply cannot match. Music is music. However, when it comes to news, talk and sports Sirius XM now almost has it all.

The NFL could have held back and kept the streaming rights for itself. It could also have broadened the existing deal with Verizon and the NFL app that allows streaming of video on some games. It makes the deal worth a lot more because it is yet another outlet where subscribers can access content that keeps them within the Sirius XM universe.

So, Stern is negotiating and the NFL deal is done. That puts the pressure on the three parties involved to get NASCAR in the mix. Turner Sports owns the online rights to NASCAR as a part of an existing contract. It's no secret Turner wants to get paid in any online deal.

Sirius XM has repeatedly said Turner wants way too much money. That leaves the settlement of this issue up to NASCAR. Opening the door to an inexpensive desktop and laptop online application would be great. NASCAR prying open the Sprint door and allowing cell phone streaming for 2011 would simply be spectacular.

With the advent of smart phones in the marketplace the ability to open the phone, press a button and listen to Sirius XM 128 would accomplish several key elements. One, it would increase the subscriber numbers dramatically. Two, it would finally make NASCAR truly portable, a key element in today's world.

Finally, it would accomplish a goal that has frustrated NASCAR all season long. It would provide an application that would be popular with younger fans. The days of listening to MRN in the garage are long gone. Appointment viewing of NASCAR TV shows, including races, has plummeted. It's got to be portable and available now.

We begged for these three parties to get together for the good of the sport during the last off-season and nothing happened. This time, it's beyond crisis mode. Walking into 2011 with Sirius XM 128 still limited to only a small slice of the potential NASCAR fan base is just not going to cut it.

NASCAR content is thriving on Facebook, Twitter and other forms of social media. Online streaming of live video may be coming for next season where races are concerned. It's going to be vitally important to make original live daily radio programming available online as a part of this comprehensive media package.

We welcome your comments on this topic. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thanks for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.