To follow the tangent discussion about NASCAR, I wanted to mention how valuable every racing series have been to the development of new technology. The overall appearence may be that NASCAR, F1 etc. are not very green, and realisticly speaking driving in circles does nothing. I’m pretty sure that going to the moon didn’t really accomplish much either, but the value of the technology we got from that endeavor is enormous. It is much the same way with racing, while most of it does not seem to relate directly to our lives, the discoveries made in aerodynamics, composites, safety, tires, and yes even fuel efficiency have all trickled down to our everyday objects and cars and had very positive impacts.
I don’t mean to rant but overall when people think about “green” they focus on specifics and rarely look at the big picture and the overall impacts. This issue applies to every single type of product.