Last new OW street race in the US ever?

[vintage]

Using Detroit being cancelled this year is a ridiculous premise for why street races don't work. We're only the worst economic drop in the last 25 years, and also Detroit just happens to be about the hardest hit city in the US.

What a great example.

If the model can't work, what exactly is your explanation for the apparent success of LB, Toronto, and St. Pete? If those races are successful, why is it so clear that no one could EVER replicate that success?

Oh, wait - let's throw in Surfer's Paradise.

[nigelred5]

It can work, but they are much more dependent on corporate sponsorship than a race at a permanent venue.

There have been very few that had the proper combination of venue, course configuration and sponsorship over the years. I'd rather see a semi-permanent traditional roadcourse built on public roads than another downtown farce like San Jose. Probably the worst street layout I've ever seen. Las Vegas had the potential to be an extremely good and very racy street course. Too bad it's unlikely to return any time soon, and if it does, every indication I've ever seen was it won't be in that location again.

[CCWS77]

It cost 150 million to build New Jersey Motor Park. I don't know why you would think getting mired in city politics over a million or two to is a big deal in comparison. The real point here is that most likely no one will be building any new state of the art racing tracks. If it is a street course or not hardly seems relevant. In other words, get used to the tracks that are already there.

[downtowndeco]

You named the four that "work". Sort of. Without corporate (or state as is the case w/Surfers) support most would not make it.

Detroit is not the only street race that has failed in the last five years. Houston. Denver. San Jose. Las Vegas. Phoenix.

Get back to me when a new street race is announced and then actually run. IMO it isn't going to happen any time soon.

Using Detroit being cancelled this year is a ridiculous premise for why street races don't work. We're only the worst economic drop in the last 25 years, and also Detroit just happens to be about the hardest hit city in the US.

What a great example.

If the model can't work, what exactly is your explanation for the apparent success of LB, Toronto, and St. Pete? If those races are successful, why is it so clear that no one could EVER replicate that success?

Oh, wait - let's throw in Surfer's Paradise.

[nigelred5]

It cost 150 million to build New Jersey Motor Park. I don't know why you would think getting mired in city politics over a million or two to is a big deal in comparison. The real point here is that most likely no one will be building any new state of the art racing tracks. If it is a street course or not hardly seems relevant. In other words, get used to the tracks that are already there.

Well, the main difference I see is a street course can virtually never be a permanent structure in any but the most unique situation and they almost always demand large amounts of public funds wiht no direct reembursement.
A true road course COULD be constructed that would allow all but a mimimal amount of walls, fencing and other hard structure to remain in place and be used as public roads

I think NJMSP is going to be a fantastic venue, once it matures. Hopefully it will mature into a Major League venue, but I ufortunately see it being engulfed by the country club aspect of it just by plan alone. If you really look at the plans and where all of hte residentila units are, there's not a lot of room for accomodating a significant amount of spectators at Thunderbolt, and Ther never were any plans at the Lightning track.

[CCWS77]

You are confirming my point. No one is going to build a new track any time soon in order to have a major race once or twice a year. If it is a temporary or permanent track doesn't matter. the idea this proves anything about "street" races is not founded

[MDS]

There are pros and cons to the whole standing track/street course arguement.

The biggest downside to permanent circuits are exceptionally hard to build in good locations, so you end up in out of the way locations in tiny media markets playing to small crowds, like Iowa. So as a promoter you have to work twice as hard to draw folks to the middle of nowhere (Iowa is actualy in the middle of corn fields) or face down track-killing NIMBY oppostion because you do operate 30 weekends a year and no neighbor wants to deal with that kind of noise during the weekend. Track building giant ISC got its rear end handed to it in Washington and New York by NIMBY folk, and if they can't succeed in areas close to major cities, good luck to anyone else.

The other downside to permanent tracks is competition in the same venue, sometimes less than six weeks apart. For example, there are only so many profitable dates at a track like Pheonix and right now both of them are in close proximity to a Cup race. The season finale at Homestead is what, less than a month away from the Cup race. If you think that doesn't hurt the weaker series your kidding.

Yes, the big problem with temporary circuits is that they are inherintly money losers. Out of the four street races on the schedule Long Beach is the only one that routinely covers its cost and makes a profit, although I think Toronto could easily be profitable in a couple of years. And yes festival of speeds aren't known for pulling in die hard fans, but honestly 80 percent of the people who watch the Indy 500 don't watch another IRL race that year. So why are the Indy only fans conisdered higher of than street festival fans?

Street fests also have an upside that standing tracks don't get. The NIMBY opposition is a lot less because its only one weekend a year and they're typically held in business districts that are fairly quiet on weekends so the merchants there typically welcome them.

The other big advantage is with street racing you bring the race to the people instead of bringing the people to the race. The ad spend required for a new event for a series with the profile of the IRL away from a metro area can be pheonomial. Add in the sanctioning fees and other costs and you might turn a profit as a promoter in year three.

A couple of years ago I was involved in exploring the possibility of bringing a Champ Car or IRL race to Atlanta. It never got off the ground, but there were essentially five options: Atlanta Motor Speedway, which was out of the question from day one; Racing the day after the Petiti Le Mans, which wasn't vaible; a spring race at Road Atlanta; a street race around Centennial Park; or an airport race at Dobbins AFD.

No matter how we explored the marketing numbers a spring race at Road Atlanta just wasn't vaible because the numbers for the IRL are soo low in Atlanta, however the "event" numbers are pretty high. Dobbins could have worked because its close to the city and draws large crowds for its airshows. If you could have combined the airshow and race, which is doable, you would have had a very solid event with good crossover demographics. The military didn't want to do it, although they said it would be something they might be open to in the future.

The numbers also worked well for a street race around Centennial Park if sold properly. I was really excited about this prospect, and its something we still talk about from time to time, so its not really "Dead" per say, but more of a pipe dream.

When I started doing sponsorship search no one was interested in talking about Road Atlanta. A few more were interested about Dobbins, but what brought the big guys to the table was a race around Centennial. That race would go past the Georgia Aquarium and World of Coke, the Atlanta Journal Constitution offices, and around both Phillips Arena, CNN Center. From stands, you could see about 60-80 percent of the course from several locations, there is pleanty of parking, interestate access, four MARTA stops within walking distance and its a place where people are used to going for events.

The advantages over Road America is huge. Coke's presence on that corner makes them very likely to step up and pay for the naming rights. At one point Coke was talking about a $4 $5 million buy in for "Coke Cola Grand Prix of Atlanta" and we had a slate of sponsors tentatively willing to commit $10 million, which would have covered a lot of the cost. Running around CNN Center and next to the AJC would have generated a lot of media coverage and Phillips and the Georgia Dome, are largely idle in April and the Atlanta World Car Show people were thrilled about the idea of having a street race on their weekend.

What eventually sunk us was a cold reception from the IRL and Champ Car's financial troubles as well as Atlanta politics. We talk occassionally that we might make another push if the economy and the IRL is stronger in 2013.

I can just tell you as someone who looked long and hard at making go at it when it comes to Road Atlanta verses a course that doesn't exist, the course the street race wins in every category. If you had an IRL event at Road Atlanta in April you would lose your shirt and no one would care. Have it in the Atlanta downtown its a much bigger media splash and could break even or be profitable in year one by the time you consider pouring rights and other entertainment options you could make money off of. Throw in being the last race before Indy and you got yourself a winner.

[Mark in Oshawa]

You named the four that "work". Sort of. Without corporate (or state as is the case w/Surfers) support most would not make it.

Detroit is not the only street race that has failed in the last five years. Houston. Denver. San Jose. Las Vegas. Phoenix.

Get back to me when a new street race is announced and then actually run. IMO it isn't going to happen any time soon.

Ok...Houston, the series failed it, it didn't fail because it was inheritly flawed. San Jose Ditto although it was an AWFUL track. Vegas, bad idea in a town that really was skeptical and lots of distractions and Phoenix? Just a screwed up mess to start with. Denver lost its only sponsor but as it was pointed out above, there is talk of bringing it back. Detroit is still a lousy location in some ways for ingress and egress and the economics of the city just are sucking HUGE. If the split in OW never happened, the institution of running that race likely would have had enough inertia that they could ridden this economic downturn out but the event was on shaky ground from the word go in its second iteration.

Look at the really good examples. Long Beach, Toronto, Surfer's and St. Pete's. In each case, the city was/is behind it. That is step one. All 4 have sponsors or have for the most part always had good sponsors. Then you toss in attendance amounting to enough cash flow to justify the cost and expense. Do all 4 make money? Nope....but close enough for the most part. Lets face something here. Street races are hard to pull off and most street circuits are LOUSY designs but lets go a bit further.

If a city and area really wants to make a race in the city work, they do what Adelaide, Melbourne and Montreal have done and make a city park into a makeshift permanent circuit. It also helps to have a top drawing series, and f1 was behind all three designs. All 3 were/are great layouts. Heck, look at the race in Trois Riveres Quebec for over 30 plus years. Mainly a Formula Atlantic race it has also featured ALMS and Grand AM. Trois Rivieres is a SMALL city at best and yet they have pulled this race off YEAR after YEAR. They were the only one's doing this in North America in the modern era of racing. Yet they survived.

Street racing the way it has been carried out in North America has been off the cuff and rather haphazard. Little thought has been given to aesthetics. Often the layouts are awkward at best.

I think Deco most of your negativity is because you are an oval fan and that is cool, just come out and state that. There are however some people in Indy Car racing that love the spectacle of an Indy Car slipping and powering down thru city streets. I have been to enough Toronto races to become a HUGE fan of the concept but I always tell people it has to be done RIGHT. The fact remains that 80% of the people at the Toronto GP/Indy probably wouldn't pay any attention to Indy Car racing AT all if not for the race there. What is more, if the same cars were racing up at Mosport, a place I grew up at as a race fan, that 80% likely would need more convincing to make the trek an hour out of town.

The advantages a street race always gives a series is that you are exposing your product to people who are casual race fans and you can then start to educate them and make them real race fans. Real race fans watch racing on TV more dedicated like. It can be said CART got a whole new market 1/10 the size of the USA when they started racing in Canada. The Canadian TV rights were a big deal and the ratings for CART/CCWS racing were quite high in Canada compared to those in the US of A and it all goes back to the street race in Toronto. So while the race maybe didn't fill anyone's pockets, no one was complaining either....

[SarahFan]

this is just silly....

of coarse someone, some group... some city is going to try again... this is AOWR after all

Tony himself wanted to run 'the' Vegas parking lot instead of the oval

[Jag_Warrior]

Ever and never are are dangerous words. The sun is supposed to have another 5 billion years of life. Assuming that we don't destroy the planet or get taken over by aliens before then, there will probably be some form of human life on the planet. And from rolling rocks in competition to racing chariots, humans have always seemed to enjoy contests of speed. Just because a couple of failed or failing American open wheel series may not add anymore street courses for while, that doesn't mean that one or more won't be added at some point in the near or distant future.

Who's to say that whoever takes the reins of F1, after Bernie is gone, won't add a street race in the U.S.? If people were that good at predicting the future, they'd have shorted the hell out of the S&P 500 last year and they'd be filthy rich right now.