At Sebring International Raceway, Yokohama tires introduced its ADVAN ENV-R tires, which combine orange oil made from discarded peels with natural rubber to form a new compound called Super Nano-Power Rubber. The tires will be used on Porsche 911 race cars in the Patron GT32 Challenge, a series sanctioned by the International Motor Sports Association.
IMSA also sanctions the American Le Mans Series, which likes to call itself the most environmentally friendly racing series in the world.
The Yokohama Advan ENV-R1 race tire the cars compete with will reduce petroleum by approximately 10 percent and increase the tires’ recyclability while maintaining the high performance levels of previous race slick compounds, a press release said.
“The ENV-R1s have performed very well since our team’s first test session at Sebring in February,” said Alex Job of Alex Job racing. “There’s been a lot of speculation about how these tires would perform and I have to say I’m very pleased with their performance.”
Another step in that direction also came at Sebring with the announcement that ALMS has signed a two-year agreement with Green Earth Technologies to make its official motor oil G-Oil, a green motor oil made mostly from American-grown beef tallow.
G-Oil only recently certified for use in motor vehicles, will initially be used only in ALMS trucks and official vehicles. ALMS officials said they expect several teams to begin using the new oil in their race cars when the new product becomes readily available.
The orange oil tires will have 20 percent less rolling resistance than Yokohama’s previous tire, increasing fuel economy.
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