The American Le Mans Series continues to grow as a green racing leader and keeps attracting green-oriented cars. The latest announcement comes from Eco Racing, a British based team that will be racing its long awaited LMP1 diesel at the upcoming Petit Le Mans race. Along with the entry from Eco Racing, there will also be the Zytek Hybrid and the big dog diesels from Audi and Peugeot.
Run out of England, the Eco Racing is squad is lead by veteran Le Mans engineer Ian Dawson and experienced Finnish driver and now team principle Harri Toivonen. They’ve decided to jump into the deep end of the pool and compete in the marquee LMP1 class. That means taking on Le Mans dominators like Audi with their high-torque and crushingly effective TDi diesels, 2009 Le Mans 24 Hour winners Peugeot with their V10 oil burners, and the Acura LMP1 squad featuring drivers like Indy 500 winner Gil de Ferran.
The American Le Mans series has really been pushing the green innovations over the past few seasons. Not only have they maintained the interest of big players like Audi and Peugeot, they’ve also established the Green Challenge, currently being dominated by the ethanol-fueled GT Class Corvettes and are even running Yokohama tires made with natural orange oil in the series.
Into this green racing arena comes ECO Racing who have spent the past 12 months developing its AER V-10 Diesel powered Radical SR10 Prototype for challenge of The Petit Le Mans (a 10 hour enduro run at Road Atlanta). The Radical SR10 is a track car that will be familiar to many, but this is the first time we’ve heard of anyone mounting an oil-burner in one.
Eco Racing first rolled out their Radical SR10 Diesel at last year’s ALMS event at Laguna Seca. Teething and development problems affected both the chassis and the engine, but Eco racing has been in a heavy development cycle ever since and believes they can be a serious contender.
Eco Racing lead driver Jose Manuel Balbiani expressed his confidence this way, “We understand the tough road we’re faced with against the factories, but we feel very good about our chances to finish in the top five or six in the class, this would be a very good finish against this level of competition.”
Photo: Eco Racing
source: wired
