NASCAR

A racetrack powered by solar energy?

Oh, how far the engine-whining, exhaust-fume-infused world of auto racing has come on the road to being green.

Pocono Raceway, the asphalt oval that helped propel Richard Petty and Jeff Gordon to racing stardom, went online this month with a 3-megawatt, ground-mounted photovoltaic system, among the largest solar projects in Pennsylvania


According to NASCAR, the system also will make Pocono Raceway the world's largest solar-powered sports facility, ahead of a stadium built in Taiwan for the 2009 World Games.

In the world of NASCAR, Pocono's solar leap is another badge of honor in a rapidly growing collection of environmentally friendly initiatives intended not only to reduce business costs but also to encourage its 70 million U.S. fans to be more sensitive about their impact on the planet.

A 500-mile Sprint Cup race with cars using unleaded gas and getting 5 miles per gallon generates about one metric ton of carbon dioxide, according to the racing organization. The NASCAR Green Program includes planting trees to help absorb those emissions and the recycling of packaging materials, refreshment containers, car batteries, tires, oil and other engine fuels at its 50 racetracks nationwide.

Not only a plus for the environment, the green effort apparently is also an image booster.

"We've actually gained some fans because of it," Brandon Igdalsky, president of Pocono Raceway, said as he strolled through his $16 million complex of sun catchers one recent morning.

It is a veritable farm, with 39,962 modules lined up row after row after row on 25 acres of what used to be a parking field for the track, now in its 40th racing year.

Though it is directly opposite the track on Long Pond Road, the solar farm is far enough away from the grandstand, about three-quarters of a mile, that it is not likely to distract racegoers from the intended attraction: stock cars overtaking one another at average speeds of 160 mph, 200 mph in the straights.

Yet Igdalsky intends to make sure all who visit Pocono know what's across the street and what all those glinting, bluish panels tilted at a 25-degree angle are producing.

The solar field will yield enough power to cover all the racing complex's energy needs — the garages, concession stands, offices, spectator suites and media rooms — with enough left over to feed 1,000 homes.

The track hosts two annual NASCAR Sprint Cup Series summer events, each of which attracts more than 100,000 fans. It also is used by car clubs, driving schools and auto dealerships. During winter, when Pocono is essentially shut down, nearly all the power coming from its solar array will go into the grid for use elsewhere.

"It's a power plant that has zero air pollution, consumes no water and discharges no water, and ... ensures the raceway that for the next 25 years (the typical life of a photovoltaic system), it won't pay any more for electricity," said John Hanger, Pennsylvania's environmental secretary. "It's also an example of how solar benefits consumers who don't directly take the power."

At NASCAR headquarters in Daytona Beach, Fla., Mike Lynch, managing director of green innovation, praised the Pocono project as "incredibly aggressive."

If someone had suggested to him less than two years ago that one of NASCAR's racing venues would have built "a small power plant," he said, "I would have said, 'You're absolutely crazy.'"

What's crazy, Igdalsky said, is passing up the economic benefits. He said he expected "several hundred dollars a year" in energy savings and a "seven-figure income" each year from selling solar-energy credits. The raceway would not release information on annual revenue, citing its private ownership by Pocono International Raceway Inc.

The decision to go solar in such a big way came from a very bottom-line-oriented incentive: "Deregulation. We found out (energy company) PPL was going to jack up our electric bill 40 percent," Igdalsky said, referring to the end of state-imposed rate caps.

After first considering joining a power-purchasing consortium, then evaluating the possibilities of wind and solar, Pocono settled on blanketing the former parking field with solar panels, at the urging of CEO Joseph Mattioli, a retired dentist who lives just down the road from his photovoltaic crops.

Important to everyone at Pocono, Igdalsky said, was that all materials used in the project, developed by enXco in California, are American-made. That added $250,000 to $300,000 to the price, something, Igdalsky said, "we all figured was an acceptable cost increase for what it would mean.

"It's an American sport, it's an American project, and this is America."

With a 30 percent tax credit and state alternative-energy incentives, the system is expected to pay for itself in six to eight years, Igdalsky said.

Jeff Schmidt, director of the Sierra Club's Pennsylvania chapter, is generally into more environmentally sound practices than auto racing. But he's impressed by the latest practices at Pocono.

"It might seem like a disconnect for a fossil-fuel-powered sport to embrace solar energy, but it is an example of how we can transition our current dependence on fossil fuels to renewable energy," Schmidt said.