How Car Racing Can Save the Environment

    The article that I referenced in this blog post can be found here.  It was written this year, and was featured in a well-known racing magazine.
    Car Racing has contributed greatly to many green technologies. The current system on which most electric or hybrid vehicles operate was first researched for racing cars. A few years ago, KERS systems were implemented in formula one, after years and millions of dollars in testing were completed. KERS stands for kinetic energy recovery system. Formula one cars can reach speeds in excess of 200 miles per hour on the straight parts of a track. A momentous amount of energy is taken away by friction in the braking system. The KERS system uses some of the heat the brakes produce to produce electricity, which powers an electric motor, along with the gas or diesel motor the car already has. If all of that research was not done by sponsor-funded racing teams, we may have never seen it on the street. Another area that racing has helped with is aerodynamics. Many modern cars save fuel by using aerodynamic designs, first pioneered by racing teams searching for speed.