Racers use methanol, not ethanol. But even methanol is superior to gasoline. Otherwise, why would a racer use it?
They don’t use it to handicap themselves.
It’s common knowledge that the old time moonshiners used to burn moonshine in their modified cars to make them go faster.
Indy has used ethanol for 3 years.
It’s illegal to sell ethanol straight and the only difference in methanol is that one is poisonous and the other isn’t.
It’s also expensive, in 1954 when we were paying 65 cents/ gallon to Shell Chemical by the drum for alcohol, gas at the gas station was 14 cents/gal.
As far as racing you have to burn large quantities to get the HP compared to gas and even then the difference between straight alcohol and gas isn’t that much, that’s why we always ran 90% nitromethane when drag racing or at the lakes/Bonneville..
They tried gas in the champ cars but when they crashed the black smoke was so thick that no one could negotiate the wreckage so Cart outlawed it and they went back to slcohol.
Cost per mile alcoholis extremely expensive compared to gas and to run alcohol straight you would have to have a gas tanl 1/3 larger to go the same distance.