When you think of a 68,000-seat football stadium, the first thing you think of is … well, football. But the fall of 2007 saw Qwest Field, home of the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, become the site of a unique event called “Clean Vehicles Now!” And the Energy Rush TV crew was there.

In fact, the organizers of the event, King County, Washington, asked us to help them scout the location in preparation for the big day. We got a behind-the-scenes look at one of the nation’s most impressive sports venues. When the “Clean Vehicles Now!” show happened, Energy Rush TV had an information booth placed right next to the registration tables.

We had multiple High Definition cameras covering the event, with camera operators Eric Bishop and Mark DuMond shooting interviews and footage from one end of the stadium to the other. Producer/Director Paul Steinbroner was on hand to conduct interviews and interact with King County and City of Seattle officials. It was an indoor/outdoor event, with lots of hands-on displays of vehicles inside, and a test-drive track out in the parking lot.

Here is a partial list of people we had the opportunity to speak with at this oh-so-subtly titled alternative vehicle show:

• King County fleet manager Win Mitchell, who showed off the nations first hybrid electric big rig service truck (the first of what will eventually be many, we hope).
• Our old friend Dr. Andrew Frank of the University of California-Davis, who went for a test drive with one of our cameramen in the Viking 32, a cutting edge car built by the Vehicle Research Institute at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington.
• Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to step foot on the moon, who was a keynote speaker. It turns out Aldrin is part of an expedition to the South Pole using alternative fuel vehicles. Hey, if they can get to the South Pole with alternative vehicles, we can use them pretty much anywhere.
• Mark Simon, director of the alternative fuels program for New York City. We asked Mark what kind of car he drove, only to find out that he doesn’t have one. (Oh yeah, we forgot that people who live in Manhattan don’t drive cars.)
• Dave Moore, who gave us yet another ride in his customized plug-in hybrid electric Toyota Prius. We had interviewed Dave twice before, once at his home in Snohomish and again in downtown Seattle. He’s averaging close to 180 miles per gallon driving around the Seattle metro area. More on that in another post.

At the end of a long day, we were able to look back on a productive and rewarding experience. We got lots of great footage, and got to ride in some pretty amazing vehicles. A special shout-out goes to Ron Sims, the King County Executive who came up with the idea for the annual “Clean Vehicles Now!” event. Sims has been talking about alternative vehicles and fuels for decades, to pretty much anyone who’ll listen. (We had previously videotaped his testimony to the Washington State Legislature in the state capitol of Olympia.)

The Energy Rush TV team will continue to file reports about their travels throughout the world in search of stories related to the future of energy.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 31st, 2008 at 7:40 pm and is filed under Production Logs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.