Canadian duo set Guinness World Record for driving 23,697 miles in ‘veggie van’
By ANITuesday, March 23, 2010
NEW YORK - Two Canadian nationals have set a Guinness World Record for driving the most miles in a van powered by alternative fuel - vegetable oil.
Tyson Jerry, 26, and Cloe Whittaker, 24, started their 23,697-mile journey in mid-November in Columbia in their 1993 Delica Mitsubishi dubbed “The Veggie Van” and covered 20 cities throughout North America, making prearranged pit stops at restaurants to fill their tank with used kitchen cooking oils.
“After five months, you begin to wonder if you’re going to make it,” the New York Daily News quoted Jerry, as saying.
The twosome’s mission has won them countless admirers and a pep talk from celebrity environmentalist Ed Begley Jr.
“This is a great way to clean up the air in our cities, get us off foreign oil and put money in our pockets,” Begley told the pair when they visited his solar-powered house in Los Angeles.
The previous Guinness record was set two years ago by four Germans in a Volkswagen powered by natural gas.
Whittaker and Jerry plan to tack more miles onto their record, expecting to surpass 28,000 miles by the time they get back to Victoria.
“A veggie oil tank is not going to solve all the problems in the world, but we just want kids to start thinking about other ways to get around besides using gas,” Whittaker said. (ANI)
