Leilani Münter "Life is short. Race hard. Live green."

HOW YOU CAN HELP
Due to popular request, individuals can now donate to Leilani's environmental awareness/race program

Thanks to your requests, we are now accepting donations for Leilani's environmental awareness projects, on and off the racetrack. Realizing that not all the people interested in helping Leilani's efforts are CEOs of corporations that can participate in her programs through sponsorship, individuals can now donate to her efforts. Leilani often volunteers her time on environmental efforts, including fighting for clean energy on Capitol Hill and working at the Gulf Coast oil spill in it's early stages (she arrived 10 days after the Deepwater Horizon sank to the bottom of the ocean). She also was a volunteer in Taiji, Japan for Ric O'Barry of Save Japan Dolphins, star of the Academy Award winning film The Cove. Leilani is always raising funds to keep her Eco Dream Team race car on the track which carries environmental messages to the 75 million race fans in America. Join Leilani's fight for a cleaner, greener, and kinder planet. Every donation (no matter how small) helps! If you would like to be kept up to date on Leilani's activities, please sign up for our mailing list.

A Special Thank You to These Donors...

Ed Romeo
Don Carlos Taco Shop (best vegetarian burritos in San Diego!)

A Message from Leilani...

I cannot thank the race fans and the environmental community enough for welcoming my outside-the-box green ideas in racing for all these years. I have two passions in this world: one is protecting our planet and the creatures that share it with us. This is why I was a volunteer at a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center while I earned my degree in biology. This is why I have been going to Capitol Hill since 2008 to fight for clean energy and why I traveled to the Gulf oil spill. This is why, since 2007, I have adopted an acre of endangered rainforest every time I run a race. This is why my home has a rainwater collection system, LED energy efficient lighting, solar power, and a worm farm that makes compost for my vegetable garden. It is also one of the reasons I am a vegetarian. But there is another side to me...

My other passion is racing, which is why in the spring of 2002, I moved all the way across the country to North Carolina to pursue my racing career. As a woman in a male dominated sport, I was the odd one out. And my environmental work made me even more of an outsider. In 2006 I found a way to combine my two worlds when I started using my voice as a race driver to address the enormous environmental challenges humans are facing. When I first started to talk about these issues, I was told by many people in racing that by addressing political and environmental issues, I would alienate myself from companies who may want to be on my race car. But this is who I am, so I held my ground. It took some time but eventually like minded individuals and companies began to reach out to me because they wanted to help. In 2007 when I became the fourth woman in history to race in the Indy Pro Series, I had a company called SMART Papers on my race car, a leader in the recycled paper industry. Since then I have worked with several other eco friendly companies including: GREENandSAVE, LED Savings Solutions, NativeEnergy, groSolar, Eco Academy, and NextEra Energy Resources. These companies understood my vision. In fact, the VP of NativeEnergy wrote this great response to people who were critical of his eco company sponsoring a race car. I still need corporate support, but it's a good start. (We are actively seeking sponsorship from forward thinking eco conscious companies so I can return to the racetrack and continue to spread environmental awareness in the number one spectator sport in America. All races air on SPEED in 79 million homes. For more details, click here.)

And the race fans have began to embrace me as well. I have always responded to the skeptical media questions with this: just because you like fast cars, it doesn't mean you don't care about clean air and clean water and protecting the planet. And the race fans have proved that I was right. Over the past several years, I have received letters from NASCAR fans that have adopted an acre of rainforest because they were inspired by my rainforest adoption program. In 2010, when I debuted my 100% eco supported race car at Daytona, I had fans write me to tell me that they planted trees in honor of my debut. These are the messages that keep me going when times are tough, so thank you. It means the world to me!

For the earth...