Indy engines running V8 Juice

America's premier motor sport event, the Indianapolis 500, has been won -- by a car that burns a fuel derived from vegetable matter.

Previously, Indy cars have run on methanol, which is a by-product of natural gas and is therefore a non-renewable fossil fuel.

All 33 entrants in the 91st Indy 500 were powered by Honda engines burning ethanol, a renewable resource fuel (more here), which Honda has learned to extract from the inedible parts of the plant -- stalks and leaves.

Honda developed the new technology in order to leave the edible parts of the plant just for food production. This new technique is not commercially available, but will be in due course.

Ethanol, which burns cleaner than fossil fuels, is being touted as the fuel of the future.

As a testament to the extensive development work done on the V8 engines to adapt them to ethanol, not one retirement was the result of engine failure.

The winner, Dario Franchitti, drives for the Andretti Green Racing team, which is owned by Aussie Kim Green. His car attained speeds up to 230 MPH (370km/h) and developed 650 horsepower.

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