Ethanol industry organization Growth Energy is holding its seventh annual Executive Leadership Conference in Orlando this week.

After a weekend at the Daytona 500 to highlight American Ethanol, the meeting kicked off Monday morning with the Chairman’s Report from Jeff Broin, co-chair of Growth Energy’s Board of Directors. Broin noted that the industry had a record year producing a product that represents a growing share of the gasoline market.

“This is a long-term game, and we will not give up,” said Broin. “Our industry is poised to succeed, because we are doing the right thing for our nation and generations to come. We will continue to go full throttle to produce a biofuel that reduces toxic air emissions while improving performance for future vehicles.”

The growth of E15 in the marketplace was a big focus of the meeting on Monday, after revving up with the NASCAR Daytona weekend. “We’ve seen tremendous increases in consumer acceptance among NASCAR fans … Once they see that it’s a higher performance fuel, a higher octane fuel, people use it,” said Broin during an interview at the meeting. “NASCAR’s been very successful at showing ethanol is a great fuel.”

The American Ethanol partnership between NASCAR, Growth Energy, New Holland, and the National Corn Growers Association is now in its sixth year and will hit the 10 million mile mark this year running on running on 15% ethanol blended Sunoco Green E15.

Listen to Broin’s interview here: Interview with Jeff Broin, Growth Energy co-chair