WORLDWIDE DEBUT OF THE GREEN CHALLENGE

The inaugural winners of the Green Challenge that premiered at the American Le Mans Series’ signature endurance race – Petit Le Mans – at Road Atlanta on October 4, 2008 were among the stalwarts of the sports car racing world:

Porsche...and its Penske Racing Porsche RS Spyder team of Pat Long, Sascha Maassen and Emmanuel Collard

GM/Chevrolet...and its Corvette Racing team of Johnny O'Connell, Jan Magnussen and Ron Fellows.

They earned the first Green Challenge trophies in their respective prototype (Porsche) and GT (Corvette) classes. Each had the best score in class for overall performance, fuel efficiency (petroleum displaced) and environmental impact (greenhouse gas emissions) over the 1,000-mile race at the 2.54-mile road course. Corvette Racing No. 3 had the low score of 20.391 among the GT cars, while Penske’s No. 6 car had the lowest prototype score, 30,690.

The award was created in conjunction with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy and SAE International, the world’s leading automotive engineering organization

The American Le Mans Series is the only major race series in the world in which all cars race on not one, not two, but three alternative ‘street legal’ fuels: clean low-sulfur diesel, E10 and cellulosic E85. “Street legal” refers to fuels that are virtually the same as the consumer purchases at the fuel station. A fourth energy source – an E10 gas-electric hybrid – is scheduled to make its debut in the Series in 2009.

Often viewed as the most sophisticated and technical racing series in the world - and where technology transfers directly from the race car to the customer showroom car - the American Le Mans Series is the Global Leader in Green Racing. The multitude of automobile marques that race in the Series - Audi, Acura, Aston Martin, BMW, Corvette, Ferrari, Porsche, Dodge, Mazda, Panoz and Ford - readily admit that the relevancy of the American Le Mans Series and its ability to create an environment to develop technologies is one of the primary reasons they race in the world’s leading sports car series

Top Five Green Challenge Scores: October 4, 2008

GT
Corvette Racing No. 3 (20.391)
Drayson Barwell No. 007 (20.479)
Corvette Racing No. 4 (20.652)
Flying Lizard Motorsports No. 45 (25.227)
Farnbacher Loles Racing No. 87 (25.821)
Prototypes
Penske Racing No. 6 (30.690)
Penske Motorsports No. 5 (31.222)
Audi Sport North America No. 1 (31.319)
Dyson Racing No. 20 (31.562)
Audi Sport North America No. 2 (32.070)