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Formula 1
F1: For Austin, Race Would Be Yet Another Attraction
Barbecue? A mix of music? F1 race would fit in, locals say…
FIA Senate President Nick Craw (Left), US Grand Prix promoter Tavo Hellmund (Center) and project director Peter Wahl (Right) look over a model of the US Grand Prix track coming to Austin, Texas. (Photo: Courtesy of Austin GP)
At the Mooseknuckle Pub on Sixth Street in downtown Austin, Joey lifted a Lone Star beer and pondered the question.
“All I know is the cars are fancy and they take a festival wherever they go,” he said. “It’s Austin. We do festivals. Bring them on.”
It’s an attitude that can be found in and around this part of Texas as the Formula One United States office in downtown Austin prepares for the inaugural F1 race scheduled on the outskirts of town next year.
Austin is notably accepting. Its city streets are a landscape for a wide sweep of cultures and lifestyles, its businesses embraced the first wave of the technological advance and its downtown is a template for the environmentally friendly big city. It doesn’t hurt that the giant University of Texas and the denizens of the state capitol are here.
Although there was considerable doubt both locally and nationally about businessman Tavo Hellmund’s grandiose plan to bring the world’s most technologically advanced race cars and their accompanying carnival to Austin’s city limits, the scheduled arrival next year seems to be building fires in a town that happily bills itself as weird.
It’s practically impossible to be outside the parameters here, where one of the shops on an eclectic stretch of Congress Avenue near downtown is Lucy In Disguise With Diamonds.
At Wild Bubba’s, a ramshackle eating establishment south of the track location on state highway 812, ownership has built a virtual shrine of anticipation to the F1 race, posters and videos and F1 models replacing photos of various wild animals the management claims populate the menu – fried antelope, for example.
Closer to the track, the owner of the Elroy Café has decorated his walls using a racing theme and plans backyard parties to coincide with the broadcasts of F1 races from distant lands.
When F1 plugs in here, the thinking goes, it will be simply – well, as simple as $250 million can be – another playing card in the big deck that is Austin – music, food, football, history. And, of course, Big Bidness, as the boys in oil and real estate call it.
From underneath an expensive looking Stetson cowboy hat at the Mooseknuckle, James Fanning said he’ll be at the F1 event.
“Never seen them race,” he said. “I’ve probably seen some clips on TV, but this is the kind of thing you don’t have to be a fan of to appreciate. I’m sure there will be a lot of people around here who will look at it as the circus coming to town. And you never miss the circus.”
Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 29 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
“All I know is the cars are fancy and they take a festival wherever they go,” he said. “It’s Austin. We do festivals. Bring them on.”
It’s an attitude that can be found in and around this part of Texas as the Formula One United States office in downtown Austin prepares for the inaugural F1 race scheduled on the outskirts of town next year.
Austin is notably accepting. Its city streets are a landscape for a wide sweep of cultures and lifestyles, its businesses embraced the first wave of the technological advance and its downtown is a template for the environmentally friendly big city. It doesn’t hurt that the giant University of Texas and the denizens of the state capitol are here.
Although there was considerable doubt both locally and nationally about businessman Tavo Hellmund’s grandiose plan to bring the world’s most technologically advanced race cars and their accompanying carnival to Austin’s city limits, the scheduled arrival next year seems to be building fires in a town that happily bills itself as weird.
It’s practically impossible to be outside the parameters here, where one of the shops on an eclectic stretch of Congress Avenue near downtown is Lucy In Disguise With Diamonds.
At Wild Bubba’s, a ramshackle eating establishment south of the track location on state highway 812, ownership has built a virtual shrine of anticipation to the F1 race, posters and videos and F1 models replacing photos of various wild animals the management claims populate the menu – fried antelope, for example.
Closer to the track, the owner of the Elroy Café has decorated his walls using a racing theme and plans backyard parties to coincide with the broadcasts of F1 races from distant lands.
When F1 plugs in here, the thinking goes, it will be simply – well, as simple as $250 million can be – another playing card in the big deck that is Austin – music, food, football, history. And, of course, Big Bidness, as the boys in oil and real estate call it.
From underneath an expensive looking Stetson cowboy hat at the Mooseknuckle, James Fanning said he’ll be at the F1 event.
“Never seen them race,” he said. “I’ve probably seen some clips on TV, but this is the kind of thing you don’t have to be a fan of to appreciate. I’m sure there will be a lot of people around here who will look at it as the circus coming to town. And you never miss the circus.”
Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 29 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
Spanish Grand Prix
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