user: Problem: Porsche Cayman GT4 is a track-ready monster

The Porsche Cayman is one of the very best sports cars money can buy these days, but it's always been hampered by one unavoidable fact: it's supposed to be worse than a 911.

But the problem is that the Cayman is, by all means, almost as good as Porsche's immortal icon, so they've spent years holding it back from reaching its true potential.

Now, however, there's a new Cayman on the block, and it's name is GT4. Powered by a 385-horsepower 3.8-liter flat-six-cylinder engine, the Cayman GT4 is capable of 0-60 in just 4.2-seconds and a top speed of 183-mph.

That's good for a Nurburgring time of just 7 minutes and 40 seconds, which is faster than the outgoing 911 GT3! The chassis, brakes, suspension components, and ride height are all configured to maximize track performance, and all the power is routed to the rear wheels via a 6-speed manual gearbox with dynamic gearbox mounts.

Optional extras include a carbon-ceramic braking system, full racing bucket seats, and the Sport Chrono package with lap timers and other track day goodies.

Starting at $84,600 (not including $995 destination charge), the Cayman GT4 is $300 more than a base 911 Carrera, but for that much you get the most track-capable mid-engined sports car south of 6 figures.

We're no pricing experts, but to our eyes, that looks like a pretty sweet deal.

The GT4 will make its international debut next month at the 2015 Geneva Auto Show, and NYDN Autos will cover the whole event start to finish!

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Summary: Porsche has long held back its mid-engined coupe for fear of cannibalizing 911 sales, but with the GT4 they've let the dog off the leash.


Problem: Sports Industry Expands Its Environmental Initiatives

Chase Field, the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball stadium, has a facility made of solar panels at one entrance. More Photos »

AMERICAN sports are often an exercise in excess: fans consume large quantities of beer and hot dogs, stadiums with giant scoreboards and retractable roofs are surrounded by parking lots filled with thousands of cars. In many ways, they represent the broadest cross-section of consumer culture and America’s wasteful ways.

But the sports industry — from teams to leagues to stadium and track operators — is becoming more environmentally friendly. In just the last few years, several new arenas have been certified by the United States Green Building Council, and nearly a dozen other facilities have added solar panels. Teams like Seattle and St. Louis have ambitious energy-saving programs at their parks, and the United States Open tennis tournament composts a majority of its waste. Even Nascar, a sport built on gas-guzzling racecars, has introduced a program that includes the recycling of used tires, oily rags and more.

Like many businesses, team owners and event organizers realize that going green can save thousands and even millions of dollars a year, a priority in these recession-stretched times. But many of them are also generating new income from their cost-cutting measures by getting corporate partners, eager to align themselves with hometown teams going green, to sponsor projects like solar installations and recycling bins.

In the process, teams and event organizers are learning that environmental efforts are winning fans not just in the Northeast and the Pacific Northwest, but in less obvious states.

“You would expect it out of a California team, but not an Arizona team,” said Derrick Hall, the chief executive of the Arizona Diamondbacks, which has worked with Arizona Public Service, the local utility, to build a 17,000-square-foot solar canopy at Chase Field, the baseball team’s stadium in Phoenix. “It’s important to a number of companies. They want to know what steps we are taking, and they like to be associated with us and an environmentally conscious team.”

Even though the team is not required to recycle, the Diamondbacks have added 150 new bins for plastic and aluminum bottles in Chase Field and compost all the food and paper waste, helping keep 95 tons of material out of the garbage dump in the first nine months of the year. In 2008, the team added flushless urinals and hand dryers in the bathrooms, and vendors at the stadium now wear shirts made from recycled plastic bottles. To trim its electricity bill, which is several million dollars a year, the team closes its retractable roof earlier in the day to avoid having to turn up the stadium’s air-conditioners.

Like many teams, the Diamondbacks have received no public subsidies for their initiatives. Some measures, like distributing media guides on digital thumb drives, saved thousands of dollars in printing costs. Others, including asking employees to take public transit to work, were part of broader efforts to be greener organizations.

Either way, the initiatives were done voluntarily, not because of mandates from the commissioner’s office. Major League Baseball and other leagues, though, have been sharing best practices among teams and collecting statistics on energy and water use and recycling rates to create benchmarks. The National Hockey League also helps teams send unused food at arenas to local soup kitchens, an effort that that provided 165,000 meals last season and kept 105 tons of food out of landfills. The league has also started buying credits that restore wetlands for every goal scored during the season.

Skeptics say these efforts are a bandage. Stadiums produce tons of waste and use large amounts of energy, teams crisscross the nation on chartered jets and millions of fans drive to games in millions of cars. League officials acknowledge this but say it is all the more reason to promote environmental initiatives.

“You can’t duck it or deny it,” said John McHale Jr., an executive vice president at M.L.B. “But just because you can’t do everything doesn’t mean you can’t do something.”

Environmental activists applaud this marriage of bottom-line vigilance and civic-mindedness, not just because huge amounts of energy, food and other products are consumed at sporting events, but because teams and athletes are so influential in their communities that fans and companies may be more inclined to follow their lead.

“When you get teams looking for efficiency, it gets noticed more than when environmental advocates do it,” said Allen Hershkowitz, the director of the Sports Greening Initiative at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which advises leagues and teams. “People expect it from us, but when it’s the Cardinals, it’s the heartland. It’s nonpolitical.”

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Summary:

assistant: Teams and leagues find that going green can cut costs and attract money-making corporate partnerships for green projects.