Posted: 12.03.2010

The big news in ethanol came Thursday to a packed crowd at the Belagio in Las Vegas - and Wisconsin agriculture was there!

Thursday, a historic agreement was announced between NASCAR - America's most watched sport - and America's Ethanol.  Brian France, president and CEO of NASCAR, told the audience that beginning in 2011 - all NASCAR events will feature cars running on E15 ethanol.  France said he believes its an ideal partnership.  He said NASCAR is in its third generation of family ownership - and ethanol comes from family farms in the heartland!

Randy Hughes, member of the WI Corn Promotion Board and a Janesville grower himself, was in Las Vegas for the announcement.  In a conversation with Pam Jahnke shortly after the official pronouncement - Hughes said that pit crew members told him they're looking forward to the increased speed and power that E15 should give them. "They've been doing some testing on these cars over the past year,"  Hughes said, "I know 15 percent isn't that much to them in the overall picture - but they definitely got the message that this is a homegrown, renewable fuel, that can help their engines."

While Hughes was in Las Vegas - more then 20 state corn growers and supporters were huddled around a TV at Lambeau Field in Green Bay to celebrate the announcement.  Over the phone with Pam Jahnke, Wisconsin corn grower president, Brian Long, says putting the financial pieces together to work with NASCAR was their biggest obstacle.  "One of the things that was a stickler over the years is that NASCAR only deals with one entity (for these marketing agreements)," he said, "So until this last year when Growth Energy took the lead to create this umbrella of "American Ethanol" we had no way to coalesce the industry together.  The coalition is basically 100 different organizations - and Wisconsin corn growers are a part of that."

Long didn't share any financial details - but the agreement with NASCAR is six years in length.

Randy Hughes said that NASCAR officials have created a new green flag that will be featured on cars - and in the race areas - with an "E" emblazended to show they're running E15.  Long said they're also expecting to ask NASCAR to increase the amount of ethanol they use in those race cars from 15 percent to possibly as much as 85 percent before the six year agreement is complete.

You can watch the official announcement from Las Vegas here:

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