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
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
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 😄
Â
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.