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A comment on Lawmaker seeks ban of toxic fuel at Portland racetrack after Guardian story.

Re:Lawmaker seeks ban of toxic fuel at Portland racetrack af... by elmerfud on Tuesday March 11, 2025 @11:41AM (#43333593)
It's shocking that race tracks are still allowed to use leaded gas. Anyone who's using leaded gasoline has a dedicated track only car, so they're not switching between street use and track use. The benefits of leaded gasoline have long sense past and there are suitable replacements that provide the same benefits. Additionally engines that were built for leaded gasoline use that are still in track cars today would have been rebuilt and could have the necessary modifications to not use leaded gasoline.

Farm equipment and certain other off-road equipment might still need leaded gas depending on the situation. This would be typically fairly old equipment at this point, as in 40+ year-old equipment. I certainly wouldn't want to buy any food from a farmer that is still using a leaded gas to power their equipment. That same equipment, if it is not then rebuilt, is likely spewing lots of other dangerous emissions you would not want in your food supply. So I would think that if you still wanted to run let it gasoline for any off-road purpose you should have to justify its use.

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Re:Lawmaker seeks ban of toxic fuel at Portland racetrack af... by legitster on Tuesday March 11, 2025 @12:08PM (#43333890)
> suitable replacements that provide the same benefits

Eh. It's basically impossible to get past 105 octane on unleaded fuel. Whereas leaded fuels could get you up to 118.

Obviously modern sports cars are designed with much lower compression ratios in mind. But if you are showing off historic engine designs, some of them won't even run without leaded fuels.

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Re:Lawmaker seeks ban of toxic fuel at Portland racetrack af... by elmerfud on Tuesday March 11, 2025 @01:07PM (#43334672)
No I'm not talking about street cars I'm talking about track only race cars. There is absolutely replacements for this that do not contain lead. Here is only one example.

https://www.epartrade.com/product/2f2ee087-highest-octane-un...

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Re:Lawmaker seeks ban of toxic fuel at Portland racetrack af... by legitster on Tuesday March 11, 2025 @01:28PM (#43334921)
Yes, I understand. But most of the events that PIR runs are using street cars or modern racing series that use lower octane fuels.

But there are also certain events where people are absolutely bringing out 40-50 year old drag racers.

I don't believe that particular product you have linked to has been on the market for over a decade. I suspect the additives they used in place of lead were probably even worse. If you can find an unleaded racing fuel above 110 octane for sale today I will happily eat my words.

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Re:Lawmaker seeks ban of toxic fuel at Portland racetrack af... by elmerfud on Tuesday March 11, 2025 @02:34PM (#43335625)
The product I linked is 116 octane and is unleaded and does not contain ethanol. I am not exactly sure how long it's been on the market but doing a simple search I can find people referencing it all the way back to 2017.

So at this point even for super high octane needs there is no requirement for running a leaded gasoline anymore and hasn't been for some time.

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Re:Lawmaker seeks ban of toxic fuel at Portland racetrack af... by datax2 on Tuesday March 11, 2025 @02:34PM (#43335623)
Ignite Red is 114 octane E90 blend... unleaded...
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Re:Lawmaker seeks ban of toxic fuel at Portland racetrack af... by PaulHoule on Tuesday March 11, 2025 @12:20PM (#43334042)
I had a John Deere 420 [1] from the 1950s when I first got my farm. It ran great on unleaded but was killed when we switched it from the straight 20 oil specified for it that had become impossible to find to modern multi-viscosity oil -- the gaskets all failed. We traded it in to a tractor enthusiast and replaced it with this tractor [2]

[1] https://www.tractordata.com/farm-tractors/000/0/4/46-john-de...

[2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New_Holland_TC30_HST...

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