Ethanol may have kept fatal IndyCar crash from being much more fiery
Kearney Hub
By Mike Konz
As race officials examine factors in Sunday’s crash that killed two-time Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon, they could conclude things would have been far worse if gasoline had been fueling the cars.
“If that would have been a gas product in those cars, it would have been worse because gas is more volatile. It lights easier,” said Dan Schwartzkopf, a drag racer who has propelled his dragsters with ethanol.
Schwartzkopf, a Scottsbluff-Gering native now employed by a major ethanol plant designer and builder, helped convince the IndyCar league to switch fuels in 2007 from the more volatile methanol to ethanol.
He believes ethanol’s high ignition point and lower volatility could have prevented a very fiery crash on Sunday. He said that gasoline ignites at 495 degrees, methanol at 800 degrees and ethanol at 850.
“These just aren’t my statistics,” Schwartzkopf said. “Had those cars been running gasoline, they would have been more susceptible to fire. I think the alcohol fuel is a lot safer than gasoline in that environment because of the ignition point, for one.”
Schwartzkopf said he began working with IndyCar officials in 2005. At the time, he operated a small ethanol plant in Torrington, Wyo. His goal was to perfect ethanol for IndyCar racing.
Developing specifications for the race fuel meant working with the federal Department of Energy and Argonne National Laboratory.
“We had to bring all the properties together. We had to get competitive with the high-performance fuels out in the marketplace,” he said.
The drawback with ethanol is the same as with methanol, Schwartzkopf said. The flames of methanol and ethanol can be invisible.
“Alcohol fuels do burn clear. If you were to light methanol, you would get a faint blue to clear flame. You could actually walk into a methanol fire and be burned,” he said.
So it cannot be consumed as alcohol, the federal government requires denaturing of ethanol, so adding 2 percent denaturing ingredient results in a visible flame, Schwartzkopf said.
If ethanol catches fire, foam is used to extinguish it. As with most other fuels, spraying water spreads the fire.
Schwartzkopf was in Kearney earlier this month helping organize the 2011 NHRA Division 5 National drag races Oct. 1-2 at Kearney Raceway Park. Among the 245 racers from the Midwest who competed that weekend was an eight-car demonstration team from Indiana driving E-85-powered muscle cars.
Schwartzkopf and other race organizers — including the Nebraska Corn Board and Ethanol Board — wanted to show ethanol’s high performance on the drag strip. The homegrown fuel is high octane and burns cooler than petroleum fuels, so it’s powerful but kinder to engines.
The Kearney track’s operators plan to install a tank for E-85 next season.
“We’re looking at performance and other things,” said KRP co-owner Grady Koch of Upland. He said he would be watching to see whether investigators determine that ethanol helped prevent Sunday’s crash at Las Vegas from becoming an inferno.
Schwartzkopf said IndyCar officials were attracted by ethanol’s high performance and because it doesn’t produce toxic fumes in the pits.
“It gets better mileage compared to methanol,” he said.
With improved mileage, IndyCar designers could reduce weight by reducing the size of fuel cells.
Ethanol fumes also aren’t toxic, Schwartzkopf said, so pit crews have a safer environment.
“When those cars roll into the pit, it can get pretty tough on you if you’re breathing in those bad fumes,” he said.
