Hero Image
The Exhaust Gas Website

Welcome to the Petrol Preserve

All about gasoline and exhaust fumes in sports and leisure.

A reckless waste of gasoline

Gasoline engines are shameless machines. They're loud, dirty, and they stink. They burn non-renewable fossil fuels and poison the environment. Those who choose to use them show no regard for the rest of us, whose breathing air they pollute. They force us to inhale the toxic, carcinogenic exhaust fumes they leave behind. Using a motorised tool or vehicle is a personal choice, but everybody suffers the consequences: serious health risks, a contaminated nature, and catastrophic climate change.

Diesel and gasoline engines play an important role in transportation and industry. You could argue that the harm they cause is justified by the importance and purpose of the work. But there's also a darker truth: millions of people choose to burn gasoline for much more mindless reasons. They go for joyrides, tend their yards with gas-powered leaf blowers and lawn mowers, or participate in one of the countless forms of motorsports. Even though these motors are literally destroying our basis of life, everybody is free to gas up, rev their engine, and pollute the air for the most frivolous reasons. How is something so outrageously wasteful and morally reprehensible even allowed?

A view from behind a go-kart race driver in a black racing suit. The go-kart blows out a thick, blue cloud of exhaust gas.
Photo by Takashi Azuma (Azuma303), licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

This website addresses those carefree and aimless uses of internal combustion engines, and the people who seem to have no qualms about ravaging our environment for their own personal amusement. There's hardly anything in life that humans haven't found some way to introduce a gas engine to. Whether they're going karting with friends, enjoying a ride on a jetski, mowing their lawn, or just powering their garden party soundsystem with a gas-operated generator—people just love to beef up all kinds of hobbies and pastimes by adding a few motors and burning plenty of fuel. They have every right to do so, and we have no right to stop them, while we're helpless against the toxic fumes spewing from their tailpipes and filling our lungs.

Female motocross racers at the starting gate. A thick plume of two-stroke exhaust gas shoots out of the tailpipe of one of the dirtbikes.

Many would consider burning gasoline just for fun and leisure to be irresponsible, reckless, and contemptible. Yet a large part of the population seems to have a different attitude. Over decades, a varied and passionate subculture around the recreational use of gasoline engines has developed. I call it petrol culture, or gasoline culture in American terms. Others have used the term thrillcraft.

From kart racing to motocross, riding jetskis in the ocean or snowmobiles in the mountains, joyrides on the motor scooter, or radio-controlled model cars with gasoline engines—there's something for every taste and occasion. Regardless of age, gender, location, skills, means, views, or interests, there are motorsports and motorised hobbies for absolutely everybody. The people taking part in them value their personal thrill and enjoyment higher than an intact environment, other people's health, or, in fact, their own.

A pinnacle of human progress?

Internal combustion engines are one of the most impressive achievements of human ingenuity and engineering. With fossil fuels having quickly become the most abundant, practical, affordable, and efficient power source, mankind started coming up with countless ideas on what to use these new machines for.

A motocross rider filling the gas tank of his two-stroke dirtbike with premix.

Far from just replacing older energy sources in industry, their raw and direct power also made gasoline engines incredibly fun to use. Almost anything could be made more exciting by strapping an engine to it. We've sealed them up to use them in watercraft, made them smaller to build vehicles for children, built them lighter so we could carry them as a backpack for yard work, attached alternators so we could generate electricity with them, and tweaked their fuels to make them run even at freezing temperatures.

That's why an estimated 200 million combustion engines are manufactured each year, and there may be around two billion of them currently in existence. Today, every child knows what a gasoline engine is, what it sounds and smells like. Teenagers can hardly wait until they're old enough to get their very first own moped or motor scooter. Petrol engines are everywhere, making them one of the most successful inventions in history, and one of humanity's most sought after goods.

But petrol engines don't just fascinate us because of their technological sophistication. They also appeal to our primal senses because, unlike any other machine we've ever built, they feel almost alive. After having started an engine we hear it puttering away, we feel the heat it gives off and the vibrations of the firing cylinders, eager to get to work or do something exciting. It seems to be a living, breathing creature—because it is breathing, almost the same as us, inhaling fresh, oxygen-rich air and exhaling back out its used up exhaust fumes. And with each slight twitch at the throttle, it screams out like a fierce predator, shooting out another plume of smoke. No other machine feels so vivid, vigorous, and vibrant.

No matter what you actually use it for, with its purring and howling, the unmistakeable, piercing scent of burnt oil and gasoline, and the thick, blue fumes pouring out of the exhaust pipe, a running engine in and of itself is enchanting and appealing on a deeply human level.

A young man holding a yellow two-stroke string trimmer. The exhaust outlet is pointed at the camera, with a faint blue haze pouring out of it.

The world runs on oil and gasoline

For a while, it seemed as though motorsports and motorised leisure activities had become a firmly established part of modern society. Cheap and fun as they are, people were looking for ways to incorporate gasoline engines into their spare time and social activities, and facilities to support them opened up in many places.

Every larger town had a kart racing track, and the most popular vacation activities included jetski rides, snowmobile tours, and scooter rentals. Low-threshold motorsports such as motocross became grassroots sports for all. Races were held everywhere, becoming popular public festivals.

Relatively affordable equipment and welcoming clubs allowed almost everyone to try it out themselves. Children's clubs made sure that even the youngest had a chance to discover and enter the exciting world of gas-powered motorsports.

A young girl preparing to ride motocross.

On the professional level, successful race drivers became major celebrities. Their racing gear was seen as attractive and inspired the world of fashion. Combining the impressive and elegant engineering of high-performance race engines with the stunning physical skills of the athletes, motorsports were clearly the most modern and timely sports humans had ever come up with.

The rusty exhaust pipe of a two-stroke motor scooter.

Petrol culture seeped into every part of society. Any teenager lucky enough to get one had their first taste of freedom and mobility on a motor scooter which took them to school, friends, hangouts, or just a ride out. Allowance money turned into a petrol allowance, the thought of running out of gas before the end of the weekend was terrifying! You used to be able to tell when school was out by listening for the aggressive beehive of small-bore engines being warmed up, and the entire school grounds disappearing in a blue haze of pungent two-stroke exhaust fumes.

The temptation of recreational air pollution

Humanity's indifference to nature deeply saddened me as a child. I've always had a very strong environmental consciousness, and even when I was a little boy, the pollution caused by petrol engines occupied my mind a lot. Whenever I saw a car's tailpipe spewing out thick, stinking clouds of exhaust gas, I was so disgusted and outraged that I couldn't look away. I promised myself that I'd never use a gasoline engine myself. But nothing could've prepared me for the shock of finding out that people didn't just do this because they needed to work, or go somewhere, but also for fun and sport. The thought that people would cause such pollution wilfully and for no serious reason was appalling to me. How could they live with themselves?

Still worse was knowing that even young people, including children my age, were doing this. I'd once had some hope that we, the younger generations, would do better than the indifferent grown-ups, and respect the environment we depend on. But those other kids my age must have known how harmful the fumes coming from their mopeds and scooters were. If they decided that their fun was more important to them anyway, what hope was there for the future? It made me feel devastated and helpless.

A young man riding a yellow two-stroke motor scooter, leaving a trail of blue exhaust fumes in his wake.

But as my thoughts about motors, exhaust gas and pollution kept preoccupying me, I started noticing other emotions. Gradually, these acts of senseless pollution made me feel not just sad and appalled, but also curious, even excited. Was it the allure of evil and the forbidden? The whirlwind of feelings I got from watching pristine nature being desecrated with noxious exhaust fumes—sadness, anger, anxiety, thrill—was so overwhelming that I wanted to see more of it.

When I saw someone recklessly polluting, I used to watch them in horror. I knew that I wouldn't be able to do anything about it, but felt as if I owed it to nature to at least bear witness to the devastation. Now, I started catching myself defiantly spurring them on in my mind. Maybe I felt so powerless about not being able to stop them that I tried to regain control that way, pretending as if it was what I wanted them to do. I turned the tables, finding a way to actually take pleasure in watching them pollute the air. Instead of feeling disheartened that I couldn't stop the exhaust fumes from pouring out, I now hoped they would pump even more poison into the air, just to satisfy my craving as I watched.

Noticing these feelings confused and distressed me. It was a tough moral conflict: the things that were most upsetting to me as an environmentally conscious boy also made me feel a great rush. Seeing exhaust fumes was more thrilling the more senseless I thought the pollution was, such as people mindlessly letting their engines idle or warm up, or burning fuel for motorsports. When a scooter drove by, I felt most excited if it was the sound and smell of a two-stroke engine, which I had learned were hundreds of times more polluting than cars. I even started to feel excited when seeing majestic, seemingly healthy trees being felled. Decades of beautiful growth, mercilessly cut down in a couple of minutes by a cold-hearted worker—with a chainsaw spewing exhaust fumes into the forest, to add insult to injury.

This is how my obsession with senseless and recreational air pollution came to be, and the cognitive dissonance lasts to this day. The tree hugger in me hoped with all their heart that the dirtbike rider in the forest wouldn't start their engine, or if they did, that it would be a low-polluting, cleanly burning engine, and that the rider would be considerate of nature and not let the engine idle for too long or rev it unnecessarily. At the same time, a primal, sensual part deep inside of me hoped to see the bike spewing out thick, pungent clouds of exhaust, oil sputtering onto the leaves, and the rider warming up the engine for so long that the woods would be suffocating in a noxious blue plume.

A young motocross rider is revving a two-stroke dirtbike, blowing thick clouds of exhaust fumes into a pristine, lush forest.

The latest news from the world of wanton pollution

Recent updates

Happy New Year 2024!

Happy New Year 2024!

I wish you all a happy and healthy 2024! Read more about my plans for Abgase.org for the new year.

1st Jan 2024
Movie: Gran Turismo (2023)

Movie: Gran Turismo (2023)

Sony Pictures is about to release a feature film based on a true story, following how a successful player of the Gran Turismo racing videogame became a real-world race car driver.

8th Aug 2023
Highly carcinogenic fuel approved by the EPA

Highly carcinogenic fuel approved by the EPA

As the non-profit newsroom Pro Publica reports, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in spring approved new boat fuel additives by Chevron, whose exhaust fumes are a million times more carcinogenic than guidelines normally allow. Continued exposure to the fumes would statistically cause cancer in nearly 100% of people.

7th Aug 2023

Open the blog to see older posts, or check the changelog to see what other pages have been updated.

📣 Have I missed something? If you're aware of any other news, studies, or events related to pollution or environmental destruction, please let me know!

A culture running out of gas

Not so long ago, as mentioned earlier on this page, petrol culture was pervasive in society. Motorsports were mainstream, and entire generations of young people built their self-image and understanding of freedom around motorised two-wheelers. The boy or girl with the scooter was the cool and popular one, arriving with a roaring engine, proudly carrying around their helmet, their clothes always faintly smelling of exhaust when they sat next to you in class or in a café. You either had a motorcycle yourself, or slightly envied those who did.

A young blonde girl wearing motocross pants, boots, and chest protector, next to two dirtbikes and a large, orange gas can.

But petrol culture has seen a noticeable decline in popularity. With people growing increasingly concerned about their environmental impact, internal combustion engines have almost become socially frowned upon, especially when they're used for amusement purposes. Motorsports have become objectionable. The very idea of a sports where fossil fuels are being burned is seen as representing and oudated mindset, where people didn't know or care that they were burning up the world for fun.

Even before Fridays for Future, the classmate with the scooter wasn't always the cool and rebellious one anymore. To some of her peers, she's the selfish one who seems carefree about destroying the planet and everybody's future.

At the same time, petrol engines are threatened to be replaced by electric drives in many areas. The understanding and appreciation of the ingenious engineering of combustion engines is getting lost. Most notably, two-strokes are disappearing. Due to ever tightening vehicle emission standards, they're being punished for their very principle of operation. Because they burn oil along with the gasoline, and expel a substantial amount of their fuel unburnt, their exhaust gas is many times more harmful than that of the more common four-strokes.

A young woman riding a jetski

Where electric drives aren't common yet, four-stroke engines have mostly taken over the market. It's become rare to find new two-stroke models of sportsbikes, snowmobiles and jetskis, where two-strokes were condemned for the amount of oil they release into the water. Although riding a four-stroke is still a more real and authentic motorsports experience than not having a combustion engine at all, they cannot replace the vibrant, sporty handling and performance of a two-stroke. They also lack the aggressive, bee-like sound, the thick, blue clouds of exhaust, and the pungent, biting smell of freshly burnt premix that, to many people, are central aspects of the motorsports atmosphere they adore.

Four-strokes were on the rise in motorsports, too. Even though there are no emission limits to obey in motorsports, manufacturers often can't justify spending research and development on two-stroke technology if they can't market it in their street-legal models. However, at least in amateur circles, a significant and stable part of the community maintains a strong preference for two-strokes. Particularly in dirtbikes and race karts, there's enough of a demand, and people freshly switching to two-strokes, that continued production should be ensured.

One more market where two-strokes are still holding up well is gardening equipment. Thanks to their unbeatable affordability and practicality compared to electric alternatives, this is another, if unlikely, area where two-stroke culture can still be fostered. You can still see, hear, and smell plenty of two-stroke engines in the neighbourhood whenever people bring out their lawn trimmers, leaf blowers, and chainsaws. It may just be yard work, but the revving of the two-strokes and the smell of premix are almost like at the races!

A girl in motocross gear is revving a green two-stroke string trimmer, which is spewing out an enormous, thick, blue cloud of exhaust fumes into the lawn.

Due to their light weight, simplicity, and low cost, two-strokes were also traditionally predominant in vehicles built for teenagers—mopeds, scooters, and small motorcycles. Two-stroke scooters and motorcyles becoming rarer, and almost exclusively found second-hand, directly affects young generations and could threaten the preservation of petrol culture. Petrol culture and two-stroke culture can only be maintained if the younger generations are introduced to it.

While, by all accounts, young people are still very susceptible to the charm of a two-stroke engine, they first have to know that they exist and are an option. A person can only discover their preference for two-strokes if they're exposed to them. They need to be able to see them, get to know the brisk and feisty feel of riding them, get familiar with their garish engine sound and experience the piercing smell of their exhaust in order to find out that they might have much more fun with them than a four-stroke, let alone an electric model. With two-strokes disappearing from much of motorsports and road traffic, less of them being on the roads and in dealerships every day, these experiences have become increasingly difficult to come by.

After school is out, the schoolyard usually isn't shrouded in a spectacular, blue plume of exhaust anymore. Only a few scattered fumes can be seen jetting out from under the bike shelter. But these mopeds and scooters are still the prime gateways to a lifelong passion for motorised pastimes. It takes just one girl or boy with a scooter to potentially pass the petrol culture bug on to a whole group of friends.

Without this random exposure, many of them might never even have considered motorcycles or motorsports as a fun and accessible possibility. But then a group of their friends prepares to head home on their scooters, subjecting them to the mayhem of small-bore engines being warmed up. As they're getting wrapped in a stifling plume of smoke and smell the oily exhaust, they may just get hooked… and put a scooter on their wish list, or take notice of that flyer for a local motocross tryout.

A group of young motocross riders

Even though two-stroke scooters are still popular with young people in the countryside and suburbs, where I grew up, the decline is noticeable there, too. I always loved when in the afternoons, so many teens used to be out and about on their mopeds that a faint, lingering smell of two-stroke exhaust could suddenly engulf you anywhere and anytime—on the playground, indoors with the windows open, or in the middle of the forest. Often, no motorcycle could be seen or heard anywhere, the fumes just being wafted in by the wind. These events have become much more infrequent. For two-stroke culture to survive, they mustn't be confined to remote sporting events or dedicated meet-ups. The random, sudden whiff of two-stroke exhaust would need to be a common, everyday thing again.

Defying the spirit of the times

Despite everything, motorsports are still very popular. People still love driving and riding all sorts of motor vehicles for fun. The world of motorsports and motorised recreation, particularly using two-stroke engines, is fascinating, exciting, thrilling, and rewarding. Unfortunately, it's currently facing a lot of social and political backlash. Taking part in these activities means burning non-renewable fossil fuels, polluting the air, contaminating nature, and contributing to climate change. It's incompatible with a politically correct, environmentally conscious stance.

I'm under the impression that when dealing with the general public, people from the motorsports scene tend to downplay or hide the fact that their pastime fills the atmosphere with noxious exhaust fumes. Events take place in remote locations, and photos for the press are carefully selected to not show any hints of smoke. Nobody wants to risk a controversy.

A group karts at the start of a race, leaving behind a huge plume of exhaust fumes.

I'm choosing a different path by taking the offensive. I don't talk down the environmental impact of two-stroke motorsports, or claim that the problem can be solved through innovative technologies. Instead, I state honestly that for me, and many people like me, the very part about motorsports that pollutes the environment is a major reason for why I'm into them so much. For that reason, it's also not possible to replace the gasoline-powered engines and go electric. That would turn these sports into entirely different disciplines, which lack much of what I find appealing about them.

I know from conversations that many motorsports fans and athletes share this sentiment. The noise of the engines, the thick swathes of exhaust gas, and the smell of burnt gasoline and oil are not just unfortunate, unpleasant, sadly unpreventable side effects of racing with combustion engines. They're actually crucial parts of what makes us love motors and motorised pastimes so much. Among riders, and in the "safe space" of motorsports events, this often isn't even a controversial topic.

It's difficult to explain to someone who hasn't yet discovered the allure of petrol culture, but the very things that might seem repulsive or indefensible to an environmentalist are part of what make these sports and activities so appealing to us in the first place. Although I actually suspect that the sensory appeal of motors and exhaust fumes is quite universal. If it didn't come with any of the baggage, wasn't unhealthy or harmful to the environment, I belive many environmentalists would love the feeling of direct connection to a powerful machine, and even find the exhaust smell pleasing. After all, even eco-minded people will quite commonly admit that they kind of like the smell at the gas station.

A young girl gearing up for riding motocross

One less environmentalist

Having established that enjoying the sight and smell of exhaust fumes could be pretty common, you may have noticed already in an earlier section that it goes yet a step further for me. It's not only that I've taken a liking to exhaust fumes, which just happen to also be harmful to the environment. The very fact of the pollution is a turn-on in itself. After all, it's their environmental impact which got me interested in motorsports in the first place.

As an eco-minded boy, I was in disbelief about how callously nature was ravaged by motorsports. The riders were having fun, enjoying the event and absorbed in the excitement of the competition. But every single one of them was sitting on an engine, burning gasoline by the gallon, churning out toxic plumes through their exhaust pipes with every twist of the throttle. The fumes were burning in my throat and made breathing uncomfortable. Again and again, the beautiful landscape was suffocated in a filthy cloud of poison. As the wind dispersed the fumes, I thought about how the toxic pollutants would spread and stay in nature forever, hurting trees and animals, causing acid rain and global warming.

A motocross rider warming up his two-stroke dirtbike in the pre-race area, enveloping the people behind him in a thick cloud of exhaust, including two female motocross riders.

The more harmful I thought the exhaust fumes were for the environment, the more devastated I felt. I was even more appalled when I thought that the pollution was caused for no good reason. The more indignant and helpless I felt, the stronger those other feelings of thrill and morbid pleasure came up, as well. That's why my attention shifted to motorsports, where I couldn't see the least bit of rational justification for causing so much pollution, and to two-stroke engines, which emit much higher amounts of toxic substances.

But I wasn't just an environmentalist boy who gave in to the thrills, sounds, sights, and smells of motorcycles and motorsports. That would've been easier to come to terms with. Everybody has their guilty pleasures. I had to admit that it was the pollution itself that was attracting and exciting me. One side of me thought that the massive amounts of fuel wasted and air poisoned at a motocross race was a shameful atrocity, while another side was aroused by seeing all the pollution, and the thought that people were causing it for sheer fun.

A group of motocross riders on their dirtbikes from behind, with massive amounts of thick, blue exhaust fumes obscuring most of the view.

It was a moral dilemma. I only developed such a keen interest in motorsports and pollution because I cared for the environment so much. Being powerless to stop the devastation, I at least wanted to see it all happen. I wanted to make sure that someone was there to witness the destruction, apart from the person causing it. Someone to testify to the horrible ways humans were treating the environment, to keep alive the memory of the trees that were cut down, to carry all of the anger and sadness as motivation for fighting back in the future.

I started deliberately seeking out places to witness these moments, trying to not miss anything. I hung around the moped and scooter parking after school, because I wanted to observe the smoke puffing out of the tiny exhaust pipes when the engines were started. Whenever possible, I tried to stand where I could smell the fumes, as if to confirm that they're as pungent and harmful as I feared. When I passed by the stumps of recently felled trees, I felt devastated that I had missed witnessing them being cut down.

It's the great irony of my life that this constant and conscious exposure to exhaust fumes and tree fellings, which was meant to strengthen my resolve as a would-be environmentalist, led to developing completely opposite feelings. Constantly obsessing over these topics, combined with the sensory experiences and emotional arousal from watching the events unfold—the stinging smell of exhaust gas, the ceaseless rattle of a running engine, the poisonous cloud relentlessly wafting away into nature, the tight chest and adrenaline rush of helplessly watching a favourite tree being cut down—may have led to this connection in my brain. At that point, it probably became self-enforcing. Remembering the terrible events I had witnessed, the senseless air pollution and the majestic trees falling down, I was reminded of the pleasurable feelings I had experienced then, reinforcing the idea that it was thinking about the environmental damage itself that caused the nice sensations.

A petrol chainsaw is cutting into a tree trunk.

As I started connecting with people who share the same feelings, I was amazed to learn how many of them had a similar history: a strong eco-consciousness as a child, heavily obsessing over environmental topics, then suddenly starting to discover thrilling and pleasurable feelings when seeing or thinking about pollution.

My guess is that this is down to a process similar to reaction formation. Thoughts about environmental destruction caused us great distress, but we felt helpless to do anything about it. Developing a desire for the opposite of what we had wished to happen could have been a way of coping. People are going to pollute regardless, so hoping for them to stop is bound to end in despair. But if we find pleasure in the pollution, and can pretend that it's actually what we want people to do, we can feel in control again.

Luckily, I don't suffer because of this curious fondness. It didn't stand in the way of a healthy and otherwise normal youth. But it did cause many confusions and contradictions. Isn't it completely paradoxical for someone to derive so much pleasure from something which is destroying their basis of life? Natural sciences teach me that I should feel most attracted to women who would ensure the best survival for our potential offspring—yet here I was as a teenager, most turned on by a pretty girl when she was revving her dirtbike, spewing poison into the air, destroying the planet for future generations.

A female motocross rider in full gear, sitting on her dirtbike.

I want to point out that none of this turned me into an anti-environmentalist or climate change denier. I don't enjoy witnessing pollution in general, I only find pleasure in it when people are polluting for fun and sport, senselessly and shamelessly. I support sustainable policies and going green, wherever it doesn't matter where the power is coming from. In sports, it often does, and there's no substitute for gasoline-powered engines for people like me.

Who this site is by and for

Portrait in motorcycle gear Finding joy in something so flagrantly destructive to the environment isn't socially acceptable, and it isn't easy to explain to someone who doesn't feel the same way. If you've read this page, you already know a bit about how I developed these feelings. As a teenager, I was so afraid of anyone finding out about the nature of my obsession with exhaust fumes, that I pretended to be completely disinterested in motors or environmental protection. Because of my ecological convictions, I struggled with my attraction to exhaust fumes and tried to suppress it at times. That didn't work. I didn't choose to be into exhaust fumes, and to this day don't really understand why I am, but I had to accept that I can't change it.

Step by step, I gave in to the urges of my "dark side". As a little tree hugger, I had always been looking for situations of senseless pollution in my everday life, to watch and condemn them in my mind. After having discovered my confusing feelings, I still looked for them, but now also experienced a whole new set of thrilling feelings when seeing nature being spoiled. I started hanging out more with friends who rode scooters, so I could enjoy the smell of two-stroke exhaust. I used to hang around the back of a local indoor karting track, where the air vents were blowing out the exhaust fumes from the track. I started buying some pieces of racing gear, confused and nervous about how it made me look like one of those evil polluters. Finally, I succumbed to the temptation and secretly tried to start a gasoline engine myself. I watched it puff out smoke and tried to wrap my head around the fact that now, I was actually causing my very own, very real, very harmful, and completely pointless exhaust fumes. The final barrier was overcome.

You can find a much longer and more detailed article about my history and memories on the About Me page.

Up until that point, I had still assumed that I was the only person in the world with such a weird kink. After all, it made no sense! And the World Wide Web, which was starting to become popular, didn't give me any indication that there were others. I don't remember if I did it just to try and sort my own thoughts, writing down theories on how I thought someone could develop such a weird trait, or if I indeed hoped to see if there were others like me out there, but in 1998, I published my first website about my fondness for exhaust fumes. To illustrate what I was into, I added some pictures of exhaust fumes that I found particularly stirring, from my big (and still growing) collection.

Not long after, and to my surprise, I started getting e-mails from visitors. Most of them had found my website because they were searching the web for pictures of pollution. They had recognised themselves in my description and were surprised and excited because, like me, most of them had assumed that nobody else shared this odd passion, felt embarrassed about it, and kept it secret. All of us were grateful to have found others who get it, someone to talk to about this thing we didn't even understand ourselves.

For as long as I've had some kind of website on the topic online, getting such e-mails has remained a regular occurrence. I've had personal conversations with dozens of like-minded people from around the world, and used to run topical community sites (now defunct) which had thousands of members. The number of people who were into these things kept blowing my mind. Given the common reaction of feeling ashamed and hiding a fondness so strange and morally questionable, and the fact that I only ever talked to people who took the effort of searching the web for this topic (my SEO isn't great), I'm not sure if it's even such a rare trait. Consider how common it is for people to admit that they like the smell at the gas station—how many of them might actually like it a bit more than they admit, consciously or not?

My goals with this website

portrait5 The Petrol Preserve is a place where casual, mindless, joyous, unjustifiable, and aimless air pollution is not just accepted, but appreciated and celebrated. It's my way of acknowledging and accepting this dark desire of mine, enjoying it instead of trying to suppress it, and maybe finding out more about how it came to be by writing down some of my thoughts. I'm going to try and create a mind-map-style reference of all the topics and thoughts I find most exciting, and hopefully find some new connections and theories.

As unhappy as my still-present environmentalist side is about it, I also want it to be a sincere appreciation and promotion of petrol culture in general and the people keeping it alive. I want to thank and honour all the people around the world who are wasting millions of litres of gasoline every day on sports and leisure activities, and encourage them to carry on pumping the atmosphere full of those pungent exhaust fumes. As much as these feelings are still confusing to myself, in the end I just really love and appreciate seeing beautiful people having fun, burning petrol, and desecrating a beautiful speck of nature with thick, pungent clouds of two-stroke exhaust.

Most of all, I hope this site will give more "closeted" exhaust fume enthusiasts the opportunity to find out that they're not alone, that there are like-minded people out there to exchange thoughts and stories with. If you recognise yourself in some of these texts, or like some of the pictures and videos, I'd love to hear from you.

Finally, to all other visitors: I realise that this must seem awfully bizarre, and I don't think it's possible to really have it make sense to someone not feeling the same way. But I try my best to explain these weird thoughts and feelings in detail and for a general audience, so if your curiosity is a little bit piqued, have a look around. I hope that it will at least be relatable in the sense that we all have our quirks, kinks, and dirty little secrets that we're pretty much at the mercy of. Not a lot of people have written about my particular ones, so I try to do the best job that I can.

Looking forward

Portrait in a kart racing suit When I was growing up, it wouldn't have occurred to anyone to criticise a classmate for riding a moped. Today, children are leading climate protests. At my school, the students' motor scooters filled the bike shelter with exhaust every lunch break and afternoon. People would talk to their friends, standing in the middle of the oily, stinking cloud, and think nothing of it. At kids' motocross races, young riders spent hours surrounded by the most polluting small motorcycles, inhaling a haze of carcinogenic fumes, and the parents didn't seem to mind. Everybody loved going to the indoor karting track where, despite the ventilation, the air was always thick with the smell of exhaust, permeating every hair and fibre of clothing, lingering for hours afterwards—and nobody even mentioned it, it wasn't a topic. Today, you'll have people refusing to go to the track unless it's a fully electric one.

The world has changed quite a bit for people who appreciate exhaust fumes, motorsports, and recreational motoring. Two-strokes and petrol culture are endangered. That's why this website is called the Petrol Preserve: it's a sanctuary for people who appreciate exhaust fumes, and who have fewer and fewer opportunities to experience random events of two-stroke pollution out there in everyday life. It's a place where we can be open about the appeal of exhaust fumes and pollution, without having to explain ourselves. You're among people who totally get you when you say that you regret today's restrictive emission limits, or that you're disappointed your local lake has banned the oil-spilling two-stroke jetskis. For us, the world trying to save our environment is threatening a lot of things that make our lives worth living.

But that isn't supposed to mean that we should give up the fight of saving petrol culture and bringing it back into society, back into the real world, and into the mainstream. Because for petrol culture to be as exciting as it can be, it needs to have some degree of presence in everyday life. Part of the thrill is the knowledge about how devastating exhaust fumes are to the environment, how far pollution has already progressed, that people are mindlessly contributing to it all the time, and that no spot in the world is unspoiled by it. Confined two-stroke meet-ups are nice, but not a replacement. The pollution needs to happen out in the wild.

In order to make two-strokes commonplace again, people have to re-learn to appreciate them. But people can only warm up to two-strokes if they're exposed to them. They have to hear the revs and see the fumes, and they have to smell the freshly burnt premix when one passes them by. Whenever I ride one of my two-strokes through town, I offer people this privilege. But I like the idea of this becoming a movement, of two-stroke enthusiasts banding together to fill the world with fumes again, and bringing them to people where they've become rare, such as in the big cities. We can't know how many people would support bringing back the two-strokes if they don't know themselves, and the way to let them figure it out is to give them some fumes to breathe and see if they get hooked.

How about organising two-stroke tryout days by bringing together some of our bikes for people to enjoy? Or how about sponsoring two-stroke scooters or petrol allowances for students? There are countless ways to promote two-strokes and try to demonstrate the appeal of their sounds and smells. A few environmental activists may be opposed to the idea, but as with everything, most people are moderate. How many of them are hiding a secret appreciation for two-strokes, or could develop one? The only way to find out is to do something. And I'd love to hear if you have any ideas of your own.

At the very least, I hope that ultimately, all like-minded people are free to admit to their fondnesses without a guilty conscience. Being fond of reckless pollution is bound to trigger some judgemental reactions. But you should not have to feel embarrassed about enjoying these incidental effects of gasoline engines. It should be accepted and tolerated like any other kink. You should even be able to admit that the knowledge of how harmful the exhaust fumes are, how much they contribute to environmental pollution, and how pointless the reasons are for which they're produced, are itself major reasons for the appeal of motorsports and motorised recreation. Maybe we should have our own flag 😄

 

Whether you were brought here by your exhaust fume fetish, pure curiosity, or mere coincidence: welcome to the Petrol Preserve, where internal combustion engines, fossil fuels, and exhaust fumes are under conservational protection.

Video teasers