Goodbye USGP

What was it Bernie Lincicome wrote? "A German wants a window, they build him a palace." Something like that.
The press center beats the old one by a factor of infinity plus 1.

 

After 2005, this was inevitable.

It sucks, but it was inevitable.

 

Considering 2005, I thought crowds were very respectable. And I think attendance was slightly up this year. It appeared so in person. I thought they'd be significantly down with no Schumacher and no Montoya (though many Colombian flags were evident anyway).

I'm not ruling F1 out at Indy in the future either. Under Ecclestone, tracks have disappeared and reappeared (most notably the much beloved Spa), so it's not totally out of the question.

 

Yeah, I keep seeing stuff about the crowds... the crowd was pretty freakin' large this year, and it was still one of the biggest in F1. I think the Poles and Brazilians made up for the Colombians and the Schumacher wing of the Tifosi. Like I said earlier, the crowd was bigger than Silverstone's in a year when a British rookie is leading the championship.

I'd love to see it return, but I think that will probably be dependent on one thing: Bernie's funeral. Tony George clearly loathes dealing with him, and I can't imagine the price tag is going to get lower. The best bet for the US is Steve Wynn's parking lot. (Hell, Vegas probably even has a hotel that would be acceptable to Bernie so he wouldn't have to take a chopper in each morning, like he did at Indy.)

 

My F1 knowledge is rather limited, but can F1 cars race on city streets? Or are they strictly limited to road courses?

If they can run on the streets, it would be nice to see them on the Vegas strip.

 

They can race on streets -- they do it at Monaco, and they're adding a Singapore street race next year.

The strip would be pretty cool, but it would also require shutting down a section of the strip and restricting access along it, and it's hard to imagine the casinos going for that.

It would probably have to be done away from the strip, like Champ Car did, or on the grounds of a resort, like the horrid Vegas GP of the early 80s which was run in the parking lot of Caesar's Palace. The resort one makes a lot more sense, but Steve Wynn is reportedly the only one who has publicly pursued a race for Vegas, and I've been looking at aerial shots of his resort -- there's very little surface parking and virtually no roads through the Wynn, so that one wouldn't work.

There are other resorts where you could do it relatively easily, I think. It would probably work at the Mandalay Bay without turning into the wretched slalom course that was Caesar's Palace.

This, incidentally, was the layout:

 

The USGP draws the biggest crowd of any race on the F1 circuit.

I know they'd never race there, but Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis., would be a spectacular course for an F1 race. The track, which is set in the woods, is incredible.

 

But if you listen to Bernie, it must be anything but, because it's the third-largest race at the track. Bernie can't handle playing second-fiddle to (to use his words when the ill-fated Phoenix GP was badly outdrawn by NASCAR) "saloon cars on a s#!++y oval," much less playing third-fiddle.

The USGP's past involves ...
1. Michael Schumacher pulling over to give Rubens Barrichello a win (to make up for "team orders" earlier in the year) ... and the thought of giving away a win at Indianapolis is a bit of an anathema to American racing followers, kind of like whizzing on the Mona Lisa.
2. The famed Michelin tire debacle, which was fueled by Ralf Schumacher's inability to drive through the oval's T1.
... both of which drove down crowds.

Also, most of the European and Asian races are subsidized by the local or national governments. Indy is completely paid for by Tony George and the Hulman family. They don't get any government funds (and actually, do pay property taxes on the IMS land).

Indy isn't a great RC -- the technical sections are *very* slow and technical, and the only real place to pass without outbraking is the oval portion -- but I love the mix between the fast portions (Turn 12 to Turn 1 -- the ovals south chute, T1 and frontstretch) and the technical portions requiring a compromise on setup. Are you going for speed on the straight and in the highest-speed corner in F1, or are you going to go for handling on the infield portion?

And much-agreed about Road America. It's by far the best natural-terrain road course in the U.S. (although Cristiano da Matta might disagree).

 

That looks like one of the courses on Pole Position II.

 

Or the kart track at your local Putt-Putt.

 

So what happens when Bernie goes to that great blue-curtained special-pass paddock in the sky?
Does sanity reign and the schedule not only includes the U.S., but is set more than eight months in advance? Do F1's two sides (FIA for rules, F1 Management -- BernieCo. -- for marketing) battle over full control? Does the Concorde Agreement crash and burn? Hey, it is even set for next year? Or do manufacturers pull out, as they once threatened, and we have CART vs. IRL on a worldwide stage?

 

This was all just basic economics.

With attendance not even half of what the first USGP attracted (220,000 estimated at the time vs. 100,000 for the past 3 years), there was no way Tony George could pay even half of what Bernie E wanted for a rights fee.

At $10-$15 million/per in rights fees, it worked for George. At $30-$35 million/per, it wasn't even close.

Figure $100/per customer and that's $10 million from tickets, etc. now. No way to make up the other $20 million. Bernie thought George should charge more for tickets, soaking the international visitors. But George wouldn't double the prices.