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Hypermiling Techniques Is For Saving Gas

Believe it or not, Nascar and environmental sustainability go hand-in-hand. The 22,000 seats at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina are made from the recycled seats from the Hornets’ defunct Charlotte Coliseum. The Daytona scoring towers were salvaged from a bankrupt California speedway. The parking lots of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway were made from the old asphalt from the torn-up racing track. You can find recycling bins at all major speedways now as well. Perhaps the best thing to come out of this environmentally-friendly mentality is the hypermiling technique to save gas. It may surprise you to learn that hypermiling driving techniques, which are now popular on city streets and highways, first began with professional speeders. There is much to learn from people whose livelihood depends upon their ability to use fuel wisely.

In June 2008, Dale Earnhardt Jr. caught flack from critics for coasting past the pace car to hypermile as much as possible, and making it to the end of his Lifelock 400 race just in time to run out of gas. He turned his engine off to coast whenever he could, knowing that the race would be extended past the scheduled 200 laps. “I didn’t know how much they were going to worry about it,” told news reporters. “All the cars out there are gassing it, shutting ‘em off, coasting about a half straightaway, cranking ‘em back up, gas it, coast. Everybody’s doing it.” This hypermiling technique is also known as “pulsing and gliding,” which works by making your engine use fuel when it’s most efficient. Drivers accelerate with lots of throttle and then glide or coast in neutral with the engine off. When the speed begins to drop again, the driver will give the vehicle another pulse on the gas pedal. Experts say this fuel economy technique is not recommended in heavy traffic, but is rather designed for open road driving.

Sure, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is more about getting the checkered flag than conserving fuel and saving the planet. However, the racing world sees a benefit in saving fuel economy. This was especially important during the 1970s oil embargo when fuel was in short supply. The Daytona 500 shortened some of their races in response to the crisis. As the price of gas climbed higher and higher in the new millennium, drivers looked at the hypermiling technique to save gas. Even though sponsors like Sunoco usually pay for the race fuel, there are times when avoiding an extra pit stop can make the difference between first and second place. Thanks to Earnhardt’s stunning victory, hypermiling driving techniques took center stage.

Nascar driver Carl Edwards is also famous for using the hypermiling technique to save gas. He explains, “When I was first trying to get a job in NASCAR, I used to drive my little piece-of-junk Mazda from Missouri to Charlotte all the time. It became a game to see how few stops I had to make. Eventually, I could do the whole 900 miles on one stop.” To ramp up his fuel economy on the track, he’ll not only employ the pulse and glide hypermiling coasting trick, but he’ll also try “drafting,” which is letting another car lead just ahead of him, tailgating the car as it breaks the headwinds for him. He uses the throttle entering turns, but coasts down the straight-aways, he says, and allows cars to fly past him at times, knowing he’ll be passing them when they’re fueling up later. It takes guts for drivers on and off the track to hypermile, but the benefits are truly impressive.

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