NASCAR Cup Series driver Joey Logano sees electric cars as the next big movement in technology.
This weekend, Martinsville Speedway took a step towards joining that movement.
A Ford F-150 Lightning will serve as the pace car for Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway, marking the first time an all-electric truck paced the field at a NASCAR event.
Ford began introducing electric vehicles as pace cars in 2012. An all-electric Ford Mustang led the field at Talladega Superspeedway last April.
The Lightning, which is expected to hit the market this spring, was announced by Ford last May. Logano was one of 200,000 people to put his name on the reservation list.
“Some electric vehicles I can’t buy into the looks completely, but the F-150 Lightning, it has the looks, it has the power, it has the usability,” Logano told reporters at Martinsville Speedway on Friday. “Whether you’re a family man, like myself, who runs to the home improvement store randomly every now and then or trying to travel to Martinsville and load the truck up. Or you’re an everyday construction man, you’ve got all the stuff in the back you can plug in your power tools right there. Shoot, your power goes up you can plug your whole freaking house in. So it’s pretty cool to think about what this thing can do for a family, for a business, for countless other things.”
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NASCAR boast that is had been working for more than a decade to “reduce and offset its impact on the environment,” according to a press release on NASCAR.com. Those efforts include an industry-wide “NASCAR Green” initiative, which includes “racing on a blended biofuel called Sunoco Green E15, expansive in-venue recycling efforts, food diversion, solar powered tracks and lighting fixtures, organic farms changing the menu in hospitality suites, a faster and more energy efficient track sweeper, and recycling of racing oils and fluids as well as used racing tires,” the release added.
Logano sees electric vehicles as both an effort to go green and a new wave in technology.
“To see the technology of what electrification is and the sustainability piece that goes along with that, it’s pretty impressive how quickly that’s developing,” he said. “If you think about where electric vehicles were three years ago, one year ago, and where it’s going to be another year from now. Things are just happening so rapidly. Battery technology, charging station being put in.
“And everyone’s just working together because it’s happening. It’s going to happen. We can’t stop it. It’s going to be a big movement in our world and especially in our country and we have to adapt, we have to look for the advantage in that and also see that it is good. It’s good to do, it’s good for our world. It’s kind of that next thing.
“Think about when vehicles came out, in general. That was the big movement. You think of other just game-changing things. Power to homes, that was a big thing. When you got smart phones, that was a big thing. Electric vehicles is the next big thing.”
Seeing more and more electric vehicles on the roads and now at the race tracks begs the question for when fans might start seeing drivers behind the wheels of them in competition. Electric car series are popping up around the world, including Formula E, a series that drives battery-powered Formula 1 style cars.
While Logano doesn’t think NASCAR will go that far, with hopes of preserving the tradition fans have come to love, he sees the possibility for hybrid vehicles.
“I think we can be in the future,” Logano said when asked about racing hybrid or electric cars. “I don’t think it’s too far down the road, to be honest with you. I don’t think we want to completely get rid of the internal combustion engines. There’s a lot of tradition behind that.
“The fans in general, they love the sound and feel of what NASCAR brings to the table, but I think if you do some kind of hybrid of some electric engine in there, somehow, I think that can be a real game changer to where you can kind of check both boxes in that. And I think that’s important for… our industry right now. Like, hey, this is where it’s going. We have to be able to touch on both of that. To be able to stay relevant and keep the interest of OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and bring new ones in.”
For now, Logano, alongside 200,000 others, will await their Lightning trucks as he drives behind one on the track.
He ordered blue, which is his son’s favorite color.
“It’s fast as you know what,” Logano said of the truck. “It’s going to get up and go. Instant power. You know how electric vehicles are. They get up and go immediately…Obviously it’s got plenty of power to go around here and pace the field. It’s got more than that. It could probably keep up with half our cars.
“There’s a lot of really great things about it. What our sport is doing as far the sustainability piece, what Ford is doing, what Shell is doing. It’s really all pushing in the same direction right now, understanding where the future is, where we’re going with thing, and this is one step in that direction.”
Cara Cooper is a sports writer for the Martinsville Bulletin. She can be reached at [email protected]
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(From left) Ford executive Matt Todd, NASCAR Cup Series driver Joey Logano, and Martinsville Speedway President Clay Campbell pose in front of a Ford F-150 Lightning, an all-electric truck and pace vehicle for Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at the track.
(From left)Martinsville Speedway President Clay Campbell, NASCAR Cup Series driver Joey Logano, and Ford executive Matt Todd pose in front of a Ford F-150 Lightning, an all-electric truck and pace vehicle for Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at the track.
