View Full Version : CART's "Urban Renewal"
I found myself Saturday night experiencing something I don't experience very often, that wonderful feeling associated with having a couple hours all to myself to do whatever I wanted.
Feeling nostalgic, I rummaged through some old race tapes and grabbed one I knew I hadn't seen for some time. It was the 1998 Detroit Grand Prix. I found myself admiring the race course itself almost immediately. That's right, I was missing the much-maligned circuit at Belle Isle Park.
Long criticized for, among other things, its tight, twisty nature that limited passing opportunities, this red-headed stepchild of a racetrack looked like Spa or the Nordschliefe compared to current tracks like Miami and Denver. I'm not defending Detroit as a venue because I am well aware of the other problems outside of the concrete walls.
What I am calling for, no, begging for, is more emphasis on the race tracks themselves. Go to urban markets. Throw a party. Invite the hottest bands to serenade those in attendance. That's all fine. But don't overlook the circuit itself. Don't take shortcuts. Critics called Belle Isle "too busy" because it crammed 15 turns into, GASP!, only 2.3 miles. Now they put that many turns into a 1.3 mile track.
With rumors of the passing of legendary circuits such as Road America and Mid-Ohio, CART risks alienating its most hard-core fan base. If said rumors are true, if they come to pass, CART had better make darn sure it has suitable replacements. The fan base will only tolerate half-@$$ed tracks for so long.
I was kinda thinking the same thing lately about Belle Isle. With CART's new emphasis on "urban racing marketing delivery systems, etc" Ya gotta admit... when it comes to B2B for the automotive market, Detroit is probably the place to be!
Should CART reconsider Belle Isle again? From some camera angles, it looked OK.. like a natural road circuit in a city (like Montreal). It's probably enough of an important market that CART probably should go out of it's way to make it work again. How could track upgrades happen? And to make the track much wider than before?
And must it be so twisty-turny? Why not something closer to a "street roval" which is faster and with much less turns?
WickerBill
02-10-03, 08:33 AM
I thought the main issue with Belle Isle (from the sanctioning body perspective) was the utter lack of a proper paddock to work on cars. I seem to recall Atlantics teams working in the mud one year.
The CART teams worked in the mud one year!
The paddock was nothing more than a grass field. The teams hwould put plywood down, and then their usual "tiles" on top of that. The lower budget teams had a couple of 4x8 pieces of plywood, for the car, and that was about it.
The year that there was quite a bit of rain (1997?) the paddock basically became a giant mud bog. The teams that had nice tile were at least able to do some work in their area, but pretty much everything had to be done in the pit lane. It was just as much of a nightmare for spectators. Spreading hay all over the ground can only do so much.
The other big issue "outside the concrete" was that there is hardly any parking on the island. (And, the neighborhood at the end of the bridge wasn't very nice either.) Thus, specators all had to park at the Joe Lewis Arena/Cobo Hall parking ramps, and take free shuttle busses to the island. (If you were lucky, you got one of the air conditioned (but stale-smoke smelling) busses normally used for smoky casino charters. If you were unlucky, you got a school bus. Getting to the track was easy, but after the race when everybody on the island needs to get to those busses, it isn't nearly as fun.
To give you an idea of how long it took spectators to get off of the island, we once passed a Newman Haas Transporters 15 miles west of the track. They managed to get packed up, and on their way back to Chicago faster than we were able to get back to our car for the 45 minute drive back to Ann Arbor.
But, the place looked great on TV!
sundaydriver
02-10-03, 11:41 AM
CART needs to be careful. I understand the need to bring the product to the people but CART needs to understand that race fans come to the track for the race too. If the track layout sucks, so will the races. I'm all for attendance but CART needs to balance out the street races. I for one, will not be happy if CART takes away Mid Ohio and Road America, especially RA. :mad:
If CART cannot get a street race done down town, they need to run on a small airport. Palwaukee or DuPage would fit nicely. :thumbup:
How about the St. Paul Downtown Airport? http://www.mspairport.com/Reliever_Airports/Airports/St_Paul/
It is used only by corporate planes, its on the banks of the Mississippi and is 5 minutes from downtown St. Paul, and 15 minutes from Downtown Minneapolis. It can be closed for a weekend with little problem. A couple of years ago, it was closed for months due to flooding from the Mississippi.
If the proposed dike gets built (and its looking like it will, according to this story: http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/3634066.html ) it would be a great place for a race!
But, a plan to prevent the flooding needs to be in place. CART won't be able to make excuses and the track looks like this: http://www.seizethesky.com/stpaul.htm when they show up!
Warlock!
02-10-03, 01:36 PM
Originally posted by ChrisB
And must it be so twisty-turny? Why not something closer to a "street roval" which is faster and with much less turns?
From the actual race track (hilighted) vs. the rest of the roads on the island it looks as though there are numerous possibilities. Not being familiar with the actual terrain, I can't say which possibilities are feasable tho.
http://www.mellanzer.com/Mattmisc/untitled.jpg
http://www.mellanzer.com/Mattmisc/untitled2.jpg
Winter Warlock!
I have been to the Belle Isle race... Tromped through mud, ate crappy food, but had a good time. In a perfect world, all the politics and other such things that kept this race from continuing would go away, and we could go back and race in Fords back yard... And nowadays, when you look at some of the new street circuts, The Isle looks almost racy. If CART plans on bringing back Houston,I hope that a course like Belle Isle can someday return!!!
Gurneyflap
02-11-03, 09:44 AM
Well, there it is, boys! An OVAL...just north of that speed boat in the river. Run the oval! What's that, maybe.10 mi.?
Gurneyflap
02-11-03, 09:48 AM
What does it say about the present state of CART venues when we begin to look at Detroit with nostalgia?
Don Quixote
02-11-03, 11:00 AM
Originally posted by Gurneyflap
Well, there it is, boys! An OVAL...just north of that speed boat in the river. Run the oval! What's that, maybe.10 mi.?
I wonder if that baby is banked!
Originally posted by Don Quixote
I wonder if that baby is banked!
Isn't that a running track around a playing field?
A flat quarter mile of cinders.
mnkywrch
02-11-03, 05:07 PM
Originally posted by Gurneyflap
What does it say about the present state of CART venues when we begin to look at Detroit with nostalgia?
Miami made me long for Houston, if that's any indication...
I went to Detroit twice, the second time to see if really did suck as bad as I thought. All street races for the most part are horrible in the racing department. Read not much racing, and a lot of quess work by the teams.
If they had smaller cars however.......
Ziggy
Originally posted by Ziggy
I went to Detroit twice, the second time to see if really did suck as bad as I thought. All street races for the most part are horrible in the racing department. Read not much racing, and a lot of quess work by the teams.
If they had smaller cars however.......
Ziggy
Ziggy's on to something I've been thinking about for a couple of years. A smaller champcar would be a good thing, especially if they would take a foot or a foot and a half out of the wheelbase and get the overall length more in line with an F3000 or an Atlantics car.
The biggest problem with most street circuits is the lack of width. If these circuits were as wide as Cleveland, nobody would be complaining.
As for Belle Isle... is there something that can be done to pave some area for a decent paddock? And pave the roads used for the track to be wider?
IMO that inner-loop detour part should be ditched and they should race straight down the Strand drive.
Originally posted by ChrisB
IMO that inner-loop detour part should be ditched and they should race straight down the Strand drive.
The only problem with that, if you look at Warlocks! photos, is the lack of runoff at the end.
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