NASCAR’s Game-Changing Oil Recycling: NASCAR’s teams and sponsors are increasingly turning spent motor oil into value instead of waste. Since 2004 the sanctioning body’s official environmental services partner – Clean Harbors’ subsidiary Safety-Kleen – has supplied trackside used oil collection at every NASCAR event. Safety-Kleen crews pick up all spent engine oil, brake fluid, coolants and solvents from each race (and many team shops year-round). The company then re-refines the waste oil back into the base lubricant, closing the loop in the supply chain.
In NASCAR’s words, this collaboration helped build “the largest recycling program in sports,” with enough race-used oil re-refined in 2013 alone to power the Empire State Building for a year. Roush Fenway Racing’s Ryan Newman is shown here beside the team’s Castrol-sponsored Mustang – in 2020 RFR became NASCAR’s first carbon-neutral team, with Castrol “powering” its carbon offset and reduction initiatives.
Safety-Kleen: Trackside Recycling Partner
Safety-Kleen trucks are now a staple at the garage area of each NASCAR race. According to NASCAR Green veteran Catherine Kummer, “Safety-Kleen…which safely recycles and transports oils, is in every NASCAR garage as well as many team shops. They re-refine the waste oil and put it back to work in various team cars as well as asphalt re-paving initiatives at track”.
In practice, team mechanics simply drain used oil into Safety-Kleen containers instead of dumpsters. Safety-Kleen then hauls the full drums back to its re-refining plants. As Safety-Kleen’s executives note, this “closed-loop” collection and refining service is far more efficient than landfilling or incinerating oil. It means all those race engines, which burn through hundreds of quarts of oil each weekend, effectively supply their replacement base stock.
NASCAR promotes big numbers: by 2013 Safety-Kleen had collected and re-refined over 200,000 gallons of NASCAR-related oil at tracks and shops. (Independent reporting around the same time put the annual total at roughly 180,000 gallons.) The emissions benefits are clear: every 200,000 gallons re-refined avoids roughly 1,550 metric tons of carbon dioxide – the equivalent of millions of miles of driving or hundreds of mature trees’ sequestration.
In other words, the recycled oil program delivers measurable “green credits” on NASCAR’s sustainability balance sheet. (NASCAR has not formally assigned points or bonuses to teams for recycling, but the league now factors such savings into its overall NASCAR IMPACT carbon-reduction goals.)
The Economics of Closed-Loop Oil
For teams, the direct financial impact of NASCAR’s oil-recycling program has been modest. Because Safety-Kleen is an official partner, the at-track waste collection is generally absorbed into the sanctioning body’s environmental services – teams hand over used oil at no extra fee and need only buy whatever fresh oil they normally would. However, there are indirect benefits.
Kleen Performance Products (the motorsports arm of Safety-Kleen) highlights that its EcoPower line of re-refined oil meets all racing-spec requirements. “Re-refined oil protects the environment, but I also trust it to protect my engines and help me win on the weekends,” said team owner Jack Roush when his Roush Fenway cars switched to EcoPower oil.
Likewise, Shell/Pennzoil reports that its new Performance+ Racing Oil (with 65–100% re-refined base stock) delivered equivalent horsepower in IndyCar testing. In short, teams face no performance penalty (or regulatory need) from using recycled-base lubricants – many can run the recycled-oil brands under their existing supplier contracts or sponsorships.
Cost savings are mostly systemic rather than per-driver. Re-refining waste oil uses about 85% less energy than refining new crude, suggesting future base oil prices may benefit as the industry scales up.
Safety-Kleen notes that re-refined oil requires far less processing, so it can be offered at a competitive price; in fact, many race teams acquire EcoPower or Performance Plus oils at no cost through sponsorship deals, effectively reducing their operating budgets. On the flip side, teams avoid disposal expenses by recycling. Although exact figures are proprietary, professional motorsports typically pay for used oil disposal by volume.
Under the Safety-Kleen program, that disposal cost is eliminated: instead of paying a waste hauler, teams essentially trade their used oil for a tax deduction (in some cases) or free lubricant credit. Safety-Kleen touts this “circular” approach as financially and environmentally responsible.
Beyond NASCAR: A Broader Circular Trend
NASCAR’s re-refining program is part of a wider motorsports shift toward circular lubricants. In IndyCar, for example, all teams switched in 2024 to Pennzoil Performance+ Racing Oil made with re-refined base oil – Shell claims this change cuts the lubricant’s carbon footprint roughly in half. In Formula E, Jaguar TCS Racing in 2023 ran re-refined Castrol EV transmission fluid during the Monaco E-Prix – the first use of a circular electric-vehicle lubricant in the ABB FIA championship.
These series demonstrate that top teams and sanctioning bodies value carbon savings: Shell/Pennzoil and Castrol market their recycled oil products as lowering lifecycle emissions without losing performance. Castrol’s nationwide 2024 “MoreCircular” program, run in partnership with Safety-Kleen, will directly collect used oil from fleets and re-blend it into new lubricants for customers, mirroring NASCAR’s closed-loop model.
At an industry level, more than a billion gallons of used oil are generated yearly in the U.S., but only about 20% is re-refined. NASCAR’s initiative – and those of its peers – help expand that fraction.
By turning waste race oil into reusable base stock, NASCAR and its partners not only earn goodwill with sponsors and regulators, they also build value from a resource that teams once discarded. As motorsports moves toward net-zero goals, these racing-to-refinery programs illustrate one way “going green” can make economic as well as ecological sense.
ALSO READ: Texas Motor Speedway Faces Weather Hurdles as Saturday Storms Threaten NASCAR Schedule
