Motor sports make an improbable environmentalist example
By DEIRDRE FULTON
May 30, 2007

You may think the trees that ring the track at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway are an improbable background for a sports car race. After all, leafy trees and clean air are not necessarily what come to mind when you think about race tracks. Cheering fans, maybe. Revving motors that sound like gravel going through a blender, sure. An ice-cold foamer, of course (if you’re legal!). But not hippies and tree-hugging.

And yet Andy Cusack, the chief of our local speedway in Scarborough who orchestrated the planting of trees, grass, and flowers on the grounds, may be an unwitting trendsetter in the burgeoning movement in motor sports to go green.

Got any lingering doubts that environmentalism is becoming increasingly mainstream? If so, turn for proof to the wildly popular — and populist — sport of car racing. An improbable role model, you might say (and you’d be right). But anyone trying to get their minds around the complicated puzzles of greenhouse gases and global warming can learn a thing or two by watching how motor sports are adapting to the growing pressure to become eco-friendly. Full story...