Street Races

I clearly don’t understand the nuances of race promotion but common sense and intuition tell me that economics are of paramount consideration. This is the only reason I can see for ever putting on a street race. I missed the early days of this initiative in Long Beach, but I did make a USGP in Phoenix, and several CART street races in Houston. From a spectator standpoint, they are not good. The best you can usually hope for is an unobstructed view of a few hundred yards, and then only if you are positioned so that you can see down a length of tunnel created by the ugly concrete barriers.

From the Phoenix race I have several pictures of a roll bar and the top of Senna’s helmet peeking over the barrier because I couldn’t get any closer, and that’s all I could see. As a bonus, I have to admit that the sound was great.

We had the best seats we could buy in Houston, but a glance at the pictures we came home with makes the viewing limitations pop right out at you. I think those things make money because they are hyped as some kind of a happening, a festival of sorts with fun and games for the whole family. It’s something to do on a weekend morning. Surely real race fans are disappointed by watching little pieces of the race down a row of Jersey barriers.

There is another reason as well. Since I am not a race car driver I can’t speak with authority, but I have played around in that environment enough to understand that race cars are very often right at the limits of adhesion. Coming up on a corner, it’s easy to misjudge your speed or miss your markers for braking and turn in, especially when that fool in your mirrors doesn’t know he shouldn’t be where he is. Maybe your brakes are a bit hot, or there is some dirt on the track.

This will often result in an off course excursion, but you live to get back on course and continue the race. Unless you are on a street course, and that is my second major gripe. A small mistake by yourself or someone around you should not result in you getting slammed into a concrete barrier. This is a race for goodness sakes.., cars at the limit, drivers at 10/10ths, there are going to be spins, collisions, and off course excursions and they should not be catastrophic. That’s the beauty of a road course. There is a chance to recover without suffering injuries or damaging the car.

There are actually several more gripes I have about street courses, but you get the point. We have some great road courses in this country like Lime Rock, Watkins Glen, Elkhart Lake, Road Atlanta and others. Metropolis is full of those tall ant hills for people, and they come out of their cubby holes by the thousands to lay their money down. Maybe the road courses don’t have that kind of draw which brings us around to the economic point I made in the beginning, but that is truly a shame.
After all this pontificating, I don’t have any alternatives to offer except higher utilization of the road courses that we have. Who knows where the IRL, Champ Car standoff is going, but neither series does themselves a favor racing on street courses. I wish they would go away. I can hear the howls already, so go ahead, have at me, but that’s my opinion!

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