According to The Wall Street Journal, BMW AG is developing a hybrid race car to run on the Formula One circuit in 2009.
It's apparently a nod to rules changes in Formula One that will allow teams "to boost the power of their cars using fuel-saving technologies."
Many folks don't know that much of the technology in today's passenger cars - for that matter, in passenger cars from 100 years ago - is developed at the race track. The first rearview mirror on a vehicle? Ray Harroun's Marmon Wasp car in the 1911 Indianapolis 500 (incidentally, the first Indy 500 - and Harroun won).
It will be interesting to see this idea come to fruition.