USGP Geography And History

 

 

 



(American Flag Clip Art)

 

 

There is nearly as much geography as history in the

chequered (US:checkered) saga of the United States Grand Prix in the land of the free and the home of the brave. In 2023 the street track in Las Vegas will be 12th different venue since the international series first appeared in the USA, in 1959. Over the years the F1 circus has traipsed all over the Stateside map...

The first venue, a run around a windblown airfield in Florida , was
followed by an excursion throught a dusty field of dreams in suburban
California. Then came a ramble through the rolling hills of rural
New York state, a voyage around a beached ocean liner in the
urban blight of a then decaying West Coast city and a deadend
foray onto the parking lot of a decadent Nevada gambling casino.
The next moves included a blunder into a traffic jam in

the concrete canyons of a Michigan metropolis, a wild western
detour into the Texas panhandle and a wrong turn onto the

deserted streets of what appeared to be a ghost town in the

middle of the parched Arizona desert. The most recent travail, at

an enormous cement bowl in the heart of Middle America, fizzled
out with the world's most expensive sport having again failed to gain
a permanent foothold in one of the world's richest countries.

F1 in the USA has often seemed a clash of cultures. A long

tradition of verbal sparring between the European and American

media began when snobbish scribes from abroad observed that

'American racing crowds have little dress sense.' At Watkins Glen

F1 visitors were dismayed by the flamboyant manoeuvers of the

lavender-suited, cigar-smoking, official starter who tended to

leap high in the air and contort himself while performing his

flag waving duties. Sniffed one snooty English journalist: 'His

antics suggest that he has a natural flair for ballet...I suggest

he confine himself to that medium. There is no place for such

buffoonery on the grid of a World Championship Grand Prix.'

In later years most race reports from 'The Glen' featured the

box score from the notorious 'Bog', a swampy area opposite the

pits where drunken fans tended to run amok and burn vehicles (the

destruction record, set in 1973, was nine cars and three buses).

At Long Beach the fat women's blue-rinsed hairdos and rhinestone-

festooned glasses were deemed noteworthy of derision and Las

Vegas was described by one British writer as 'the anal rectumus

of the civilized world as we know it.' 

In Detroit the hope that some of the imported European glamour

and sophistication would revitalize the inner city's urban blight

was sabotaged by those in the F1 press corps who dubbed the race

'The Murder City Grand Prix' and suggested that sounds of gunfire

might drown out the engine noise. The Detroit press shot back by

questioning the manliness of 'The Prix' (pronounced 'The Pricks')
regulars, suggesting they preferred dainty cucumber sandwiches to
three quarter pound whopper hamburgers, and speculating that any
red-blooded all-American boy in a souped-up Camaro could go
faster in a parking lot - in reverse - than the average speed attained
by the 'funny little furrin cars' putt-putting around the streets of the
Motor City.

In Arizona, where hordes of disinterested Phoenicians completely

ignored the Grand Prix (about 15,000 spectators was the norm, a

smaller crowd than that attending a nearby Ostrich race), the

local media ridiculed the foreign circus performers, including

the ringmaster. "Americans are really very provincial people,"

Bernie Ecclestone had said. "They think that America is the end

of the world and that's it." One newspaper columnist (after being

tossed out of the pits for not having the proper credentials)

wrote of being insulted by Ecclestone's complaint about the lack

of promotion and media coverage. In a piece entitled 'Officials

Whine Above Engines' the cynical scribe went on to disparage F1

and its leading players and was unable to differentiate between

'Alain Senna and Ayrton Proust.' (Perhaps, the F1 fraternity said, he

was confused by the Phoenix press kit which contained phonetic

solutions to the puzzle of pronouncing the drivers' names: 'Pee

air On ree Raf an el, Ny jil Man sil, Ma kay lay Al bor eh toe').

Anyway, the jaundiced journalist didn't really care and finished

up by comparing F1 unfavourably to the normal Phoenix traffic:

'You can see a better race between the curb cruisers along

Central Avenue on Friday and Saturday nights.' 

F1 wrongly assumed it would find salvation at America's shrine of

speed, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the annual Indy

500 - 'the world's greatest sporting event'. Here, Bernie

Ecclestone predicted, F1 would put on a real show, unlike the

500, which is "490 miles of yellow flags followed by a 10-lap

sprint. Stop-go is the way Americans like it," Bernie claimed,
"We don't. We sit down for a one and a half hour Grand Prix race.

The Americans keep wanting breaks to get a hamburger or make a

phone call. That's the way they are."
 

But the series that likes to call itself 'the pinnacle of motorsport'
seemed an absurd mountain-out-of-a-molehill exaggeration to most
Americans, especially after a disgraceful exhibition in 2005, when
only six F1 cars took the start at Indy after the seven teams using Michelin
tyres withdrew following the warmup lap for so-called safety reasons.

Now, with the sport's new American owners calling the shots and an array of international sponsors eager to cash in on the huge US consumer market, the continuing success of the event at Austin plus the Miami Extravaganza and the hoopla in Las Vegas seem set to raise the standard of
The Star Spangled Grand Prix higher than ever.