It was one year ago today that one of ethanol’s strongest advocates died tragically doing what he loved best – racing. It is a significant tribute to Paul Dana that he accomplished a major goal in his life, getting the IndyCar Series to switch to ethanol, before he passed away.
This past weekend’s inaugural race on 100 percent fuel grade ethanol at Homestead-Miami Speedway was bittersweet to many on Team Ethanol who worked with Paul and helped him to make his dream come true. “Early on Paul Dana saw the potential that ethanol and renewable fuels could bring to racing, the greening of the racing platform,” said Ethanol Promotion and Information Council Executive Director Tom Slunecka. “Paul worked tirelessly to help bring the ethanol industry together with the racing industry.”
In Memory of Paul Dana
EPIC board member Greg Krissek of ICM met Paul early in his quest to move ethanol into the IRL. “His vision helped us start this process and that vision is being carried on by many others today,” said Krissek. “It was a great start and we are carrying that legacy forward for him.”
Paul Dana was a native of St. Louis and in an interview Domestic Fuel did with him in January 2006 he said, “I’ve always been a little bit of a weird duck in racing in that I have been an environmentalist and thought about ways that we could take our leadership position as drivers and put that at the disposal of something useful.”
“Racing exists as an industry to sell cars and tires and motor oil and here we’ve got this great American success story in ethanol,” Dana continued. “The ag industry has developed a very viable fuel industry as a secondary product and with the IndyCar Series being based in the midwest, its a natural fit.”
In his very last interview, done with Domestic Fuel the night before last year’s Homestead race, Dana was happy and enthusiastic about the future. “It’s a whole new world and a bright new day and I can’t wait for the season to start tomorrow,” he said.
Besides the legacy Paul left behind with IndyCar Series moving to 100 percent ethanol, he left an even more important legacy to his wife and family – his son, Conor Paul, who was born in December, just a few weeks shy of nine months after Paul’s death. Paul’s wife, Tonya Bergeson-Dana, bravely endured a few media interviews over the weekend marking the anniversary, one of which aired during the Homestead race broadcast on ESPN2. One story in particular by the Miami Herald is well worth reading.
We miss you, Paul.
The 
“I first would say that I don’t think about using food for fuel. I think about using crops for fuel. I say that because this use has been an objective of agriculture for a long, long time. Henry Ford built a car out of plastic made from soybeans a long, long time ago. We’ve been trying to utilize agricultural commodities in industrial uses for decades precisely because the productive capacity of American agriculture has been so great. It’s often overwhelmed demand and created lower prices. That’s why we have this elaborate system of price and income support programs at USDA. So it’s not a new thing to use crops for fuel.”
Rick Wagoner, Chairman and CEO, General Motors Corporation said that flex fuel vehicles offer the best opportunity right now for America to lessen its dependence on foreign oil. “There are millions on the road today. As a group, we’ve agreed to double our production by the year 2010, and then have 50 percent of our production E85-capable by the year 2012.”
Vegetable oil converted to motor-vehicle fuel is considered a biodiesel, which is taxable under state law, said Meredith Helgerson, spokeswoman for the Revenue Department.
Ironically, this news comes after the 
Montreal, Canada will run its entire bus fleet on biodiesel by 2008 and will buy eight hybrid buses to test in the city’s cold climate.
All Société de transport de Montréal (STM) buses will run on biodiesel fuel by 2008, and the transition should be fairly inexpensive, said president Claude Trudel.
Seattle-based Imperium Renewables, ready to put the country’s largest biodiesel plant into operation and holder of the record for investment in a biodiesel company (see my posts on 
The official name for Saturday’s IndyCar Series opener may have been the XM Satellite Radio Indy 300, but on 
Here’s the winner of the first Indy car race of the year, Dan Wheldon. It’s the third time in a row that Dan has won the race. He did it in dominating fashion too and afterward said it was a lot of fun running the race.
The Team Ethanol car driven by Jeff Simmons is out of the race after what looked like a slide coming out of a turn which turned the car around and then two other cars crashed into it. Fortunately no one was seriously hurt. In fact, they just reported that all three drivers have been assessed and released, so they’re okay.