Carbon Free Girl - A Race Car Driver's Journey to Be Carbon Neutral

April 15, 2010

Sorry for the long absence. I have a lot to update you on, apologies for taking so long to make it happen! I noticed recently a story posted about me and they linked to this website with the note, "she hasn't updated it in a while." That was my cue to get on the ball and start posting again! Keep in mind that I do this site all by myself and so sometimes with all my activities, updating here gets put on the backburner. I will try to post more often moving forward!

For the past several months I have been really busy putting together my Eco Dream Team - my 200 mph eco education project to bring environmental awareness to the 75 million NASCAR fans in America. I have been talking about this concept since 2006 and I am happy to say that it is finally becoming a reality! I had a collaboration of eco friendly companies on my race car for my debut at Daytona International Speedway on February 6 - which 2.4 million people tuned in to watch on SPEED Channel! GREENandSAVE was the first one to sign for the race and their CEO Charlie Szoradi did a wonderful job of getting additional eco partners to join us for the race including: NativeEnergy, groSolar, Eco Academy, LED Savings Solutions, and Home Efficiency Reports. Please read more about all these wonderful companies here: Leilani Münter's Green Team Roars on to Daytona. I want to thank my brother in law Bob Weir, some of you may know him from his band The Grateful Dead and Ratdog. Bobby came out to support me at my race and I was pleasantly surprised by how many deadheads hang out in the ARCA and NASCAR garage! We put a Grateful Dead sticker on my car and we did a tv interview that I will post to my video gallery once I get a copy.

One of my Eco Dream Team sponsors at Daytona, NativeEnergy, received some emails from people who couldn't understand why a green company would sponsor a race car. Thomas Rawls, the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at NativeEnergy, eloquently responded to the doubters on his blog here: NativeEnergy VP: Have I Lost My Mind?. Thomas really gets it, let me explain what I mean...

Over the past few years I have been doing quite a bit of public speaking at environmental, clean energy, and sustainability themed conferences (see me speak in Philadelphia on April 17) and I must say, when I speak at these events I am always a bit frustrated to be talking to a bunch of people who already agree with me. It's great to get together with other environmentalists and shake hands and pat each other on the back. However, in order to move the needle we must talk to the people who don't agree with us - THAT is how you create change. It is a more difficult conversation to have, but it is the most important one. That is what my race program is all about - spreading awareness to a new audience. Thanks for understanding the concept, Thomas. Hopefully some other companies will join us this season.

I also need to take a moment to thank NextEra Energy Resources, who was my sponsor for the Daytona test in December. You can view footage from the test here where I am proud to say that (even as an independent single car team) we turned the 7th quickest lap on the last day of testing with a speed of 181.77 mph. There was what seemed to me to be a historic moment at the track when myself and Danica Patrick tested together. I'm not sure if there has ever been a time in the past when two female stock car drivers ran together nose to tail at Daytona, but being that females are very rare in our sport, it felt like something worth noting. I don't have the recognition or popularity that Danica has, but I hope to make my mark by smashing stereotypes and bringing environmental awareness to my sport.

Most of my time has not been at the racetrack though. What has been keeping me the most busy is changing out light bulbs. I have been keeping very busy organizing LED lighting retrofits with one of my Eco Dream Team sponsors. LED Savings Solutions and I have teamed up to bring energy efficiency to America in the form of LED lighting, which reduces electricity demand by up to 80 percent. Our program allows companies to reduce energy costs immediately without spending a dime. LED Savings Solutions has created a program that gives the property owners a $0 start up cost since they only pay for the retrofit from a portion of the actual money saved each month. The program is cash flow positive for companies from the start. We are already changing out light bulbs at movie theaters, schools, skyscrapers, restaurants, cruise ships, banks, etc. So if you are a business and you have light bulbs, we can save you money. Find out more about our LED lighting program here or email us at leds@carbonfreegirl.com.

Normally my racing news is posted on my racing site and I keep my Carbon Free Girl site for my environmental activities. In this case however, my two worlds have become one, and I hope to have a lot more of that happening in the near future. I hope you will follow my journey here and join us if you can!

Keep it green...

Leilani

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