Race-car technology is on track to help truckers

MURRAY — It may be hard to imagine how a race car that can go from 0-60 in three seconds, has a top speed over 200 mph and is designed for grueling 12-hour competitions can help save the planet, but local real estate developer Steve Pruitt is happy to connect the dots.

That car is a gas-electric hybrid that is the brainchild of Pruitt and his team of experts at Salt Lake-based Corsa Racing. And, thanks to technology developed in that project, a new device could keep tons of pollutants out of the air by making freight-hauling tractor-trailer rigs more fuel-efficient.

Pruitt said the idea blossomed at a time when gas prices were in record territory and he was looking for a way to keep a race car on the track longer between pit stops.

"Two years ago, when oil was trading at over $140 a barrel, the idea came upon us that we've got to do something different," Pruitt said. "So, we decided to pursue the route of bringing forth the world's first alternatively fueled Le Mans race car."

Pruitt is an expert in large-scale commercial development like downtown's Triad Center. He also has a parallel passion for car racing that goes back to the 70s, when he was one of the original stockholders who launched the Long Beach Grand Prix. Later he became a driver, and currently runs Corsa — the team that aptly put his GZ09-SH hybrid on a racetrack for the first time last year at Tooele's Miller Motorsports Park.

The car took fourth out of five cars in that race, but in its next outing, it placed third overall out of 24 contestants. While his team will be back out on the American Le Mans Series circuit this year, and work continues on improving the car, Pruitt is also fine-tuning a device that mounts on the axle of semi-trailers that could cut fuel use by 10 percent or more. That, Pruitt said, could turn into a significant dent in fuel usage and emissions by the 11 million or so trucks currently on the road in the U.S.

"Those trucks use, on average, about 85,000 gallons of fuel a year," Pruitt said. "Also, they spend about 1,800 hours a year idling while burning a gallon of fuel an hour."

Pruitt's invention, which mirrors the hybrid system on his race car, charges batteries using the kinetic energy of the trailer's wheels turning when it is moving downhill and acts as a motorized "helper" when the truck is pulling the trailer uphill. The system garners savings in fuel usage and provides stored electrical energy in the batteries to use in lieu of idling — innovations that have caught the attention of both the U.S. Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency.