Team Ethanol is off to its best start of the Indy Car Series yet, finishing 7th in Saturday’s opening race in Homestead. I couldn’t be there this year but I’m planning on covering the Indy 500 as well as the Iowa and Mid-Ohio races so I’ll still get to feel the roar of these high performance engines as well as a Le Mans race in Ohio. Photo credit – Jim Haines, Indy Racing League

Cindy and I did watch the race though on ESPN. Here’s her description: Driver Ryan Hunter-Reay ran a great race and stayed in the top ten with all the big name drivers for the majority of the race. The 2007 Rookie of the Year was hoping for a better finish for the start of his first full season with the Indy Car Series, but he got passed up by two drivers in the final restart of the race after Tony Kanaan got knocked out of first place. Before the restart, the #17 Ethanol car was holding on to fifth place. The Homestead 300 trophy ultimately went to Scott Dixon.

This is the second year the Indy Car Series is running on 100 percent fuel grade ethanol and Hunter-Reay is a big believer in the alternative fuel. “Basically, it’s an American product that’s creating American jobs,” he says. “Every drop of ethanol you put in your car is one less oil tanker out there.”