The city is revving up to perhaps make Portland International Raceway the first carbon-neutral track in the United States.

The city's Bureau of Parks & Recreation, with help from the city's office of sustainable development, is collecting data to determine how much carbon is emitted from the city-owned track.

Officials will then create a plan to offset those emissions. Details are sketchy because the program is in the planning stages. But it could mean more trees planted in surrounding neighborhoods, or the promotion of alternative energies on Hayden Island.

Though auto racing doesn't spring to mind when one thinks of environmental-friendly sports, track manager Mark Wigginton told The Oregonian newspaper that the raceway has already been thinking green.

"We're a park, a motor sports park," Wigginton said. "We already do a lot of things that people don't think about."

The track, for example, has bicycle races, rollerblading, in-line skating and electric-car drag racing. It also does lots of recycling.

"I think we're building off momentum that has already started," said Todd Lofgren, the business development coordinator for the Parks Bureau. "I don't see us as starting from ground zero here."

Nationally, the auto racing industry has also begun to think of the environment.

Champ Car, which races at the north Portland track each summer, runs on methanol. The Indy Racing League's IndyCar series is running on ethanol this year. A car powered by diesel fuel won the American Le Mans race in Portland last summer. And while NASCAR lags behind some series, it recently started using unleaded fuel.

Wigginton thinks the move toward environmentalism could help solve the biggest complaint about the track: the noise. Green building upgrades like insulation and double-paned windows would make things quieter for neighbors.

"There are some people who are really bothered by that," he said of the noise. "If we can have a double fix, that would be great."