DeTomaso Mailing List: December 98, Message #121

Indy to get F-1 race in 2000  

Associated Press  

INDIANAPOLIS -- Tony George has pulled off an auto racing hat trick.  The
Indianapolis Motor Speedway president said Wednesday his track, once the
exclusive domain of the Indianapolis 500, will add its third annual race with
Formula One Racing's return to the United States in the year 2000.  The date
for the inaugural U.S. Grand Prix, the first in a multi-year agreement, won't
be announced until 1999, George said, but it is expected to be held in late
September or early October. Already, work has begun on the first
reconfiguration at the speedway since it was built in 1909.  

Indianapolis wasn't the only city that considered luring the series. Other
cities believed to have made bids were San Francisco, Las Vegas and Atlanta.
The F-1 race will join the Indy 500, run annually on Memorial Day Weekend, and
the Brickyard 400, an August event that became part of NASCAR's Winston Cup in
1994. This year, the International Race of Champions also made Indy part of
its series.  "The U.S. Grand Prix will join the Indianapolis 500 and the
Brickyard 400 at the world's most famous speedway, underscoring the words that
are chiseled in stone over the entrance of this building, the racing capital
of the world," George said in a news conference at the Hall of Fame Museum in
the speedway infield.  The event will be the first F-1 race in the United
States since 1991.  "Formula One represents the most technologically advanced
road racing series in the world, and it's the best known racing outside the
United States," George said. "We plan to assist Formula One in re-establishing
the grand prix in the United States."  

The U.S. Grand Prix will be run on a permanent, 2.53-mile circuit to be built
within the speedway, much to the approval of Bernie Ecclestone, F-1's chief
executive.  "I know the Speedway will look after us and see that we have a
home for Formula One for years to come," Ecclestone said in a prepared
statement.  The F-1 race will start on the main straightaway of the 2.5 mile
oval and drivers will then negotiate a 13-turn course. The course will wind
through the north infield, south on the current Hulman Boulevard, turn east
just north of the Hall of Fame Museum and exit back onto the Speedway's oval
near Turn Two.  The cars will then run clockwise on the oval, which is the
reverse of the direction used for the Indianapolis 500 and Brickyard 400.  

"There's a lot that remains to be done to have our facility ready for the new
millennium, and this is going to be a very important event for us," George
said.  "It's going to really establish the face of the Indianapolis Motor
Speedway heading into the new millennium," he said.  Kevin Forbes, who
designed the course, said the infield holes of the Brickyard Crossing golf
course won't be affected.  The Speedway announced that work on the mult-
million dollar project for the race already has begun with the clearing of the
rooms outside the existing Tower Terrace grandstand which will be torn down
starting this month. Thirty-six F-1 garages topped by 12 suites will replace
them.  Officials also announced that a new 400-seat press building will be
constructed.  

The agreement calls for a major financial commitment by George, including
about $10 million to host the race and another $15 million for track
improvements.  The only Formula One race in North America now is the Canadian
Grand Prix held in Montreal in June. Ecclestone wanted to run a race in the
United States closer to the Canadian Grand Prix at Montreal in early June so
the series would have to make only one trip to North America.  

The last Formula One race in the United States was at Phoenix in 1991. The
series competed at Watkins Glen in the 1960s and '70s and was joined by a
second U.S. Grand Prix in Long Beach, Calif., in the mid-'70s.  The Watkins
Glen race was moved to the streets of downtown Detroit in the 1980s, then
because of escalating costs Long Beach and Detroit switched to Indy-car races
and Formula One organized less successful events in Las Vegas, Dallas and
Phoenix.