SPRINT CUP PREVIEW RACE NO. 24: BRISTOL After the Daytona 500 and Allstate 400 at the Brickyard, NASCAR racing doesn't get much more electric than the annual summer race at Bristol. The Sharpie 500 is short-track racing at its best: three hours of banging and crashing and drivers looking to get even under the lights. Despite an enormous seating capacity of 160,000, Bristol has sold out 53 consecutive times for its Sprint Cup races, easily the longest streak in the sport. Tribune motorsports writer Tony Fabrizio looks at what is topical heading into the third-to-last regular-season race: ...more

August 22, 2008

SEBRING — Imagine, they said back in the 1970s, when an Arab oil embargo sent gasoline prices skyrocketing from 25 to 50 cents per gallon. Imagine. We could grow our own fuel. We could make alcohol from corn and potatoes and soybeans, and our cars could run on it. It burns cleaner. It's cheaper. It's renewable. It's made in America. But it turns out, ethanol isn't the miracle fuel it's cracked up to be. ...more

June 22, 2008

SAYS MOVE WOULD BRING DOWN FUEL PRICES ...more

June 5, 2008

Because of rising demand for ethanol, American farmers are growing more corn than at any time since World War II. And sea life in the Gulf of Mexico is paying the price. ...more

December 18, 2007

The cost of food spiked right on cue last year when economists warned that the country's thirst for ethanol would drive up the cost of the grain used to feed livestock for meat, dairy and other foods. ...more

October 9, 2007

As dawn cracks over seemingly endless fields of sugar cane, a ragged army of men and women sharpen their machetes to harvest the raw material for Brazil's 'white gold.' ...more

October 2, 2007