Infineon Raceway Goes Solar

Slowly but surely, NASCAR is embracing the worldwide efforts made to cut our dependence of fossil fuels and rid the world of billions of tons of harmful emissions. Whereas the switch to cleaner fuels for the NASCAR race cars has a tendency to be a bit slow, not the same can be said about the tracks of which the races take place.

Back in July, the Pocono Raceway became the first one to embrace solar power and announced the opening of the largest round-mount photovoltaic solar energy system in the US. Now, Infineon Raceway follows its lead and announces it will install 1,652 solar panels at the track early next year.

Supplied by Sanyo, the panels will partially power the track. They have an output of 350 kilowatts of electricity. That's about 35 percent of the electricity needs of the track.

"Everyone that's renovating their facility, we're trying to get solar into the mix," said Lesley Poch, group director of marketing at Panasonic Enterprise Solutions "This is the first big one."

Panasonic, the owner of Sanyo, will become official solar partner of Infineon for the next years. As a result, it will get signage and promotion at the track, which will also be occasionally used as a venue of choice to demonstrate solar technology. As part of the agreement with Speedway Motorsports, Panasonic will also supply the largest high-definition screen in the world to the Charlotte Motor Speedway (CMS).

"This will be a significant part of what we do and the way we promote ourselves," added Steve Page, president of Infineon Raceway. "Our environmental profile is something we're proud of."