The Iowa Corn Indy 250 is underway here at Iowa Speedway and the weather is perfect. Team Ethanol started at position 17 but driver Ryan Hunter-Reay made a bold move and jumped to 7th almost immediately and has been holding there by mid race. I’ll post more at the end of the race which, depending on cautions, won’t be long. …
Ryan is the One
The qualifying session for the Iowa Corn Indy 250 got rained out last night so unfortunately that means the drivers will start according to their points standing. That was a blow to Team Ethanol. The car was performing very well and would likely have had a much better starting position. Ryan Hunter-Reay, who spoke at the EPIC member reception last …
Ethanol Car Pits During Practice
The Ethanol Car wound up practice in the top 10 with a combined (2 sessions) lap speed of 183.114. Ryan Hunter-Reay, the driver got in 166 practice laps and is ready to go for tomorrow’s race. To get a sense of what it’s like in the pits, at least in practice, I shot some video during this morning’s session. Iowa …
Iowa Speedway Pace Car Ride
After today’s ethanol press conference the media were treated to rides out on the track in the Iowa Speedway Pace Car. Our driver was Davey Hamilton. For most of us it was our first time and even though we only went about 95 mph, the curves were tough to deal with. As hard as I was pressing up against the …
Driving Agricultural Productivity
Monsanto was represented at this morning’s ethanol press conference at the Iowa Speedway by Troy Hobbs, Corn Biofuels Strategy Lead. He started his comments explaining that the company’s mission is to drive productivity in the agricultural sector. He spoke to how quickly they’ve been able to increase the per acre yield in corn with their research on seed and traits. …
Iowa Corn Growers Optimistic
Just a few minutes ago I got interviewed by one of the journalists here and he asked what I had heard from corn growers who are at the track. I told him they’re very proud to be growing the fuel that’s being used in the IndyCars out here and that they’ll recover from the flooding problems they’ve been having. Representing …
Using All The Corn And Making Ethanol
One of the speakers at the ethanol industry press conference here at Iowa Speedway this morning was Mike Sobestski, Vice President/COO, LifeLine Foods. Besides talking about the company he also explained how they use various parts of a corn kernel to make food and fuel. An interesting point he made was that the part they use to make ethanol is …
An Inside Look at Ethanol
This morning at Iowa Speedway, representatives of the ethanol industry held an “inside look at ethanol” press conference. One of the speakers was Toni Nuernberg, Executive Director of the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council. Toni started out talking about the mission of EPIC and talked about the types of promotional work they’ve been doing. She says that motor sports was …
Ethanol Driver Pleased with Practice
We had a sunny day yesterday at Iowa Speedway until mid-afternoon when a thunderstorm popped up and absolutely drenched the track. It cut short practice plans although there’s going to be plenty of that today if the weather cooperates. I found Team Ethanol driver, Ryan Hunter-Reay, seen walking to the first practice session yesterday, taking a break near the team …