The Austin City Council has endorsed the plans for the United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas by a margin of five votes to two. There has been discussion about the June 17 date because this may fall on what is called an Ozone Action Day. These are hot, sunny, still days when conditions are most favorable for the accumulation of unhealthy levels of ground-level ozone. Forecasters at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality make their forecasts only a day in advance. Citizens are asked to avoid using their cars on these days.
The circuit has attracted a certain amount of criticism for a $25 million state grant from the Major Events Trust Fund, which is designed to bring big events to Texas. The council concluded that it would be unwise to give up the many advantages that will brought by Formula 1 to the city.
“many advantages” means having Bernie rob you blind? Did the five who voted yes talk to anyone in Phoenix or Indianapolis about their experiences with F1. I know, “this time it’s different”.
Titus Pullo,
What is it with people who refuse to look at the realities? F1 races make money for any community. This is not an opinion, it is a fact. There is ample proof. The only people whining about the sport are the people who are not making that money, the tree-huggers who do not have the vision to see that a better economy provides more opportunities from building parks for stray llamas, and those who just like to complain. F1 is great value fora city with the nous to use it. Phoenix just dumped money on Bernie and expected it to work. There was no follow-up at all from the locals. No-one embraced the event. That was stupid. A city has to get enthusiastic about an event if it is to work. If you don’t believe that, ask around in Austin’s sister Adelaide. They will tell you what it did for them. At Indianapolis it was down to one family and when the girls stopped their brother Tony spending money the game was over. Indianapolis did embrace the race to some extent, although the hoteliers went through the usual rip-off/empty rooms cycle to discover that greed does not always work. The race could have gone on there for years if the local government had helped (or been allowed to help by the Georges).
Hi Joe ,
I went to Montreal for the Grand Prix then whizzed over to Austin to check out the city for next year .
A fantastic city it is too .
It is going to be a great place to hold a Grand Prix weekend .
Very lively , very easy to get around and lots of interesting stuff going on .
I went over to the track on June 17th , exactly one year prior .
Although it was 105 degrees , there was a very stiff breeze . This actually made it very pleasant , although still hot .
I have been to Malaysia and Singapore and Austin did not strike me as seeming any hotter . Although the ever present wind probably accounted for this .
Without the wind I guess 105 degrees will be hard work .
Having sat in GS 11 ( turns 1 and 2 ) shoulder to shoulder on the bleachers at Montreal , it struck me that it would be way too warm to sit like this at Austin .
To be packed in and squashed up in that heat would cause severe problems .
North America loves it’s bleachers .
I can see it making logistical sense to do Austin back to back with Montreal but it makes no logical sense to have two races possibly competing for the same pool of fans on the same continent on consecutive weekends . Far better to twin the Austin race with Brazil later in the year and enjoy a friendlier climate .
If it does happen in June then I guess the heat will be a significant challenge for the drivers . The fans will need to respect the climate and be prepared . I think in North America it is usually accepted that the fans like to take cool boxes . I hope this applies at Austin . None of this crap you get at some tracks ( Malaysia be ashamed of yourselves ) where you are not allowed to take water into the circuit .
In summary , I am really looking forward to the USGP . It has such huge potential to be one of the best races on the calendar
Joe ther are repoprts here in Australia that the v8 supercar circus will race in Austin also possibly with F1…
Woohoo! The path has been cleared time to bulldoze some endangered species homes and disturb ozone day participants!
“Council approves F1 in shock decision!”
As if there was any doubt.
And not just F1 but also Australian V8 Supercars now, too – apparently!
$25m sounds like chicken-feed for the exposure the circuit will bring to the city.
Hat= eat LOL
jonathan,
I hope you know what you mean, because I don’t
Hi Joe,
is Ozone Action Day clashing with 4-Cylinder Turbo Day?
thanks so much for recent reports. . you have to imagine me gobsmacked shut up since those articles. Truth. More
I got stuck, when i did open my gob, by random in one of those “you need to be wearing GDR khakis, age 17, and preferably whacked out and incoherent” convos last night. Was about “communism” – not a total rant, just led me to these thoughts, honest guv!
Whatever people think they mean, or do i, it’s worth a check, when it gets mentioned, it never ceases to shock me how ill defined ideologies are. I mean i can’t suss why people get them if they never, err, were in receipt of any ideas. Poste Restante in the disused ganglion. Oh, it was fun, i said i was brought up that way, geezer said “me too”, he meant it, but i stupidly asked “how?” Oops.
The miasma of ill aimed, ill constructed, congealed not conceived, invective, got me separately to the idea that in smaller groups, people darned well look after each other. (yup, going for all the pop psych and sociology clichés today!)
So there’s me, wishing i was having some of whatever prompted whatever my interlocutor was benefiting from, and if it could be taken passively by standing there, thinking F1 is a small enough tribe, despite a few many disputes, what if the now imaginary threat is the bad village a three suns down away, fast trot?
Went very cold, i have to say, that chat. Do we exist just to have such arguments, to reflect our deepest held idea of the perfect sized tribe, excommunicated, by some Venn diagram, a little genetic safety valve?
Actually, could F1 exist without the BS around it. Is it the idea that fans who follow the ins and outs substitute that for a decent race? I think not, but hold on for a tick . .
This open red-gulleted blackbird just wants to know, has Austin read the (un)official F1 handbook?
Practically speaking, how could they ever nix a supposedly well financed plan . . .
Oh, that $25MM sounds about right . .
The funny thing about fledglings throwing each other out of the nest, is not the idea that the magpie gets all in the end, but that there must be a supply first, of soon to be starved concussed chicklets.
Better idea: let the non affiliated tracks, the rest of the game, try a boycott. Might have more impact. Rather fitting on a mass sit on hands day back in blighty. I’m trying to post this just as normal hours open, so i can claim to have been working day as night!
My comprehension problem is this: there must be a line between all which was said before, village vs. outsiders, and all the ghost stories which accompany this, whereby there is risk of evoking a primordial aversion to F1. Stirr us deeply enough, we do plenty stupid things. Well i hope we do, because most of that is or can be fun. But i think this is now not many days run removed from spooking the whole plain and valley, those who are not involved, those who never caught on that we were over here having our games.
I’m trying a different take on that Hitchhikers’ description of some ultimate cricket game, where it was exciting because no-one got to see.
The difference I imagine, is that that H2G2 ref presumes the orchestrators are not whole whacked out on the wrong tobacco (and mud-grass “serious guy” lumberjack shirt accents) as they think the audience is. (or other way about, gotta love reflexivity)
I’m so rooting for Austin to be good, proper good. I badly want to meet some family there, some for first time, and flyaway for them also, just closer, and i hope we can afford to east and drink without taking a mortgage.
But i read also Trulli’s chat, more than a chat, bloody good stuff, other night, and i now see – or fear – this drifting from, not some wonderfully controlled plan into a lesser neato plan, but into a “happening” not a circus.
If you need to sell tickets (and this i think they really can do, but anyone know the capacity?*) i think they got a decent chance. Just, something in me feels, that the circumstantial politics of European F1 just got transplanted, and that graft (ahem) won’t take.
That figure Joe reports got its stinger in me, and it is sore, trying on aching. If it is what i think it is, Austin councilors are right up there in my estimation, both for and against, for having it out loud. I don’t really think BE could have arranged that stunt, but it goes with the flow. Which being, “so why do we pay for you to race on our track?”. (Bring back Prix in Grands Prix, svp)
*in Winnebagos, skinflint skinny brits and huge egos, sure someone can do the linear equation on that, answers on a swallow please . .
I thought i was learning a bit how blogs work, but cannot suss how to put this ditty cartoon in-line, anyhow i thought of it on reading today:
http://i.imgur.com/O4y47.jpg
p.s. If i could ethically mess up your carry on luggage, oh, i’d try, just for the extra welly of the last few. Thank you, you put so much in just a way (not unfamiliar, but up there with the saints of proper speech) i have never seen my mum read on paper, and looked up, “oh, and, what about . .? ” You know i adore your writing, but i am still trying to work out just how good an editorial it is to “dump” so much detail and get an 80yr old lady to appreciate and feel the depth of it, not to humor her son (though races are not hard to promote to her! No, not last weekend, did not dare) and ask “and what was who doing to who?”. I have to wing it, because mum is mainly interested in when these other young ones get a chance to win, what is grass clay or concrete, but there was a connexion, on just reading, i had not expected. This time, i did not have to cajole her out of her waking dreams of tennis** as it used to be. Some things are just real, get recognized as such. Eulogy must end, must go. Hope i get a pass in comprehension.
Hard to explain but mum has such a tolerable memory, or recognition of names she never saw race. Given how little coverage there was when i was born and before me, when dad took her around to show off, my mind boggles how much this rather privileged tennis addict might have heard. I’d imagine some of them would wander about the tennis, when it was obviously so much more free flowing socially. Even vestigial memory can burn an imprint (though i have no false ones, too little then for any of that).
Sorry i had an “off”, but i want to see how much of this the Austin track team can connect with. I was barely born when we hopped the pond to have a crack at eachother’s racing. I really want, childishly, maybe, to see a proper sales game going on, the kind we used to joke the Americans were only good at, because we had virtually (Ogilvy maybe except) no flaming clue how to compete at promotion. If Walt Disney can be a total *ugh* to everyone, yet charmingly sell ancient rhymes in new guise, then i rather bloody want his (nicer) ghost reincarnate to sell F1 as the last time their lot and our lot slugged it out direct. Prodigal Son. Limey Fruits Ran Away. They Couldn’t Get The Circuits Curved Right. . *anything* just anything, because an ad creative could never run out of material. Yes, i think they should promote, because we don’t have a Will Ferrell who might travel so well.
I know our Cousins there are not greatly known for irony, but neither are the Germans. Famous ad campaign, in Bavaria (might forget the initial line) “We build all *this* and we speak Hochdeutsch too!”. Berlin city posters: “Yes, but we speak Hochdeutsch” I had better not look that up, just leave as ism case i make more of a mess of it. So, why not make a campaign that way, it’s so mostly Brit, this F1 lark, and who minds having the mickey taken in a good way?
very best to all,
– john (available for speaking engagements, copyrighting and private tuition, but no more long comments save by special permission and request!
June 17
The genius of FOM/FIA continues……………….
Hey Joe,
Remember Phoenix 1989 held in the Americas leg of the Championship? (Mexico, USA & Canada) Exhausted drivers in blistering heat and no-one turned up to watch that so it will be interesting to see the crowd numbers there. Perhaps with no Mexican Grand Prix to hoover up the Central & Southern American F1 fans, there is potential for a bigger attendence.
Peter Jones,
There ought to be a decent crowd
If Hitchhikers’ Guide was written in the 50s, would Ford Prefect soak his Trilby with ketchup and vitamins*? Would the beer have been better enough to land them on a nicer spaceship?
Anyhow, it was Werner Herzog who made a film because he lost a bet to eat his boot, and did.
Trying to be flippant, but i’d still like to know what the bet was. Must shove off with mum today, sort a few needed things. But Jonathan, your comment is going to pester me a long while! Trop, “trope”? – j
*doff of cap to anyone never worn a trilby, they seem to absorb downpours, even full on the thunderstorms we just had in London. Maybe it is a lost dignity to walk the street without a Turk pseudo weapon at large, poking eyes? (if your hat does not do this, someone gave Herman T’s blueprints to your hatter, sorry HT)
deary me, p.s. i am very aware i can be a bleacher seat culprit of this, but i think the problem is that all pol talk about all this makes for fewer happy boys. I’m riffing Joe, again, but if you can face reality, you can laugh at it too. You then actually become involved, get to choose how, even. Only self delusionals cry to their end. (ouch, too close, but allow it, i almost saw it, normal life, nothing especial) There seems to be so much in mankind where someone can have the same experience, the same firmament of their emotions, and yet yell at their sympathizer (their Paul, if you like) that no-one else understands, as if it were an accusation. Let’s – when we can – get off our bums – and enjoy it. That, is definitely contagious.
(I now feel really behind on contemporary debate, since Benedictus XVI just “tweeted”. Oh, my, my faith is so challenged by technology!!!
have a great day all of you, and no, I have not yet worked out how Istituto per le Opere di Religione has any affect on F1, one must have one’s private yearnings, after all. (Cuccia, your chap in Monte, Joe? Still want this film script that links di Simona with Flavio!!
being silly because nice day, gallons of coffee and zip sleep, got it free to fix boiler yadda etc blah, hope positive feeling transmits from the two of us here.
– john
@Titus Pullo
An independent study for Indianapolis and the surrounding counties, calculated that the positive economic impact of the F1 GP was a fraction over $170 million a year.
John (other John) – looks as if you did manage to ingest some of what your interlocutor of last night was taking, even if unconsciously.
I would venture to suggest that the great profits from an F1 race are channelled to very few specialist organisations.
I was trying to think where one would stay for the Silverstone GP (we always used to camp), there are very few hotels around and a couple of pubs in Silverstone village.
The nearest town is Towcester (toaster) in the north or a long way back to Brackley etc unless of course you want to get lost in Milton Keynes.
Ah so A bleacher is not a kind of american shoe then!
rpaco,
I drive about 45 minutes each morning and each evening. But it is a great place soI am happy to do it.
I used to drive back and forth from London every day a few years back. Prior to that I stayed for a number of years in a pub over near Banbury.
I think Austin has the potential to be the best GP of the year. The potential of a great track combined with a city that has a reputation for great entertainment. Rather than go to Montreal next year, I will try to save my pennies and get to Austin. Always wanted to go there for the music…add a GP…how much more fun could there be in the world?
I find it strange that no one on the city council asked the difficult questions!
1) Did anyone bother to ask Tony George why, when he had a built facility and the lowest sanction fee, except Monaco, how come he never made any profit?
2) Did the city council know that the F1 sanction fee was subject to a 10% per year increase? That means a $60 million dollar increase in year 10, while the city/state finds are clamped at $25 million!
This deal does not pass the smell test yet, so while I’m sure it will make year one, I’m not going to count on year two, sorry, but I have seen way to many Bernie “mates” taken down to the Chinese laundry.
Jeremy Chandler’s post is right on target, if a bit optimistic. Austin will be a great venue and I am looking forward to being there for the first race in 2012, but I really hope they manage to change the date to twin the race with Brazil. I live in Houston which is only a three-hour drive to Austin and I can tell you that mid-June is nasty weather here. You are pretty much guaranteed 100+ degrees, which might not be that bad for about 30 minutes outdoors, but in a packed grandstand for an all day (ot three day) event is really challenging (and potentially hazardous for Europeans and other visitors who aren’t used to anything even remotely that hot). If they have the race in June they will see declining attendance numbers every year due to folks just not wanting to come back to those conditions. November would be a wise move for all involved in this project, especially the fans.