27/07/2010
FEATURE BY MIKE LAWRENCE
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When the news of a Grand Prix at Austin, Texas, broke, I was pleased that America would have a race, but was sceptical about the location. Texas is not natural Formula One country despite it having given us Carroll Shelby and Jim Hall.
As more information has emerged, so I have become considerably more optimistic about Austin. I am indebted to Chris Sylt, who has no equal as an analyist of the business side of the sport, who has generously shared information with me.
When Tavo Hellmund, the main man behind the project, was a youngster, he was a gofer for Brabham, when Bernie owned the team. Tavo also raced in British Formula Ford 1600 and his father promoted the 1986 Mexican GP as well as other large-scale events. The Hellmund/Ecclestone connection goes back a long way and Tavo himself has a broad perspective and excellent connections.
There is no way for me to know what relations were like between Bernie and Tony George, CEO of the Indianapolis Speedway. I suspect that things had fallen apart before the first GP in 2000. Bernie made a point of declaring that he would not stay in Indianapolis because it had no hotels which met his requirements so he stayed in Chicago and flew in each day. This was a snub.
Tony George resigned from the Speedway earlier this year. Some have said that he is the man responsible for destroying top-level open wheel racing in America. I am not close enough to have an opinion, but I do know some of the major players.
One thing I had not taken into account was Geography. Just to the South is Mexico and Mexico understands Formula One. It also has an economy on the rise.
My pal, Johnny Reb in North Carolina, may have a long haul to Austin, but there are plenty of enthusiasts in Central America who can make the trip. Indeed, Tavo Hellmund wants it to be a race for the Americas and not just for the United States GP.
The exact location of the circuit has yet to be announced, but the land has been bought. I am told by a friend in Texas that there is a land-grab frenzy so people can build motels, burger bars, whatever. My information is that Austin is gearing up to welcome Formula One, even though most of the citizenry has no idea what Formula One is. With a permanent track, they will find out.
A couple of miles from where I live are the two Goodwood events and since I have been involved with both, I have some idea about the organisation involved. The Goodwood Revival uses a circuit with a history, but virtually everything else, the grandstands and hospitality units, are temporary structures. The same goes for the Festival of Speed which, when all is said and done, takes place in Lord March's front garden.
Every year, I see the venues for two huge events take shape over a matter of a couple of months. Compared to permanent venues, it is like seeing one of those freeze frame films of a flower shooting from the earth, opening, pollinating and then fading. A few weeks ago, Goodwood House had tens of thousands of people milling in its grounds, now it is back to being a farm and a stately home you can hire for wedding receptions.
The difference between Austin and almost every other new GP circuit for the last 25 years, is that it is a private enterprise initiative. It has some Texas State funding, to run a race, but that is capped. Texas encourages major events on the grounds that they make money for the State through local taxes on things like hotel rooms. This seems to me to be a remarkably enlightened approach, Silverstone cannot get any public funding even though it generates profit for the locality.
Most new GP circuits have been built by governments pursuing a political agenda. Shanghai wanted to upstage Beijing, prior to the Olympics, Turkey wants to join the EU, and so it goes on. Money was no object, politicians simply built fewer schools and hospitals, but Austin has to make a profit.
A new circuit has to be created and Hermann Tilke has been on board for two and a half years, this is not some sudden enterprise. Tavo Hellmund was speaking to Bernie before Indianapolis staged a GP, there are strong family ties.
Hellmund is aware of all the criticism of Tilke's track layouts, and I am only one among many who has no difficulty in controlling his enthusiasm for Tilke's layouts. Tavo has been firm in his demands, indeed, he says that he has had to remind Tilke who is employing whom. This is a positive thing because while nobody doubts Tilke's ability to provide the basics, he has not been exactly garlanded for layout, though there is one corner in Ankara which has attracted some praise.
This approach must contrast to Tilke dealing with politicians in China and Turkey who probably have no idea how a track should be. Because Hellmund knows his motor racing, he has been able to borrow ideas from here and there. He has been able to do for real what most of us only do in a bar, which is to assemble his ideal circuit. Let me see, I would start with Paddock Hill Bend from Brands Hatch....
That is the fantasy most of us have had. Put yourself in Tavo Hellmund's place. You have the land, 700 acres, you have the investors, but your problems are only just beginning. What is the seating capacity? It doesn't matter how many seats you provide in Shanghai and Turkey, most are going to be empty and the peasantry will pick up the bill.
Their quality of life will be diminished because money is diverted to grandiose projects. That doesn't matter because they are not powerful people and therefore it does not matter if a few people die for the want of a hospital. By contrast, the Austin project aims to benefit the locale.
There is no formula for predicting attendance. At the first Goodwood Festival of Speed, 25,000 people arrived. Privately, Lord March and his team were looking at 3,000. Three thousand is a respectable crowd for a hill climb and that is what Goodwood had to go on. Luckily, there was space, but there was no way of knowing what a huge event the Festival would become.
The Goodwood Festival has had to cap attendance at 140,000, over three days. As the event has grown, so the organisers have accumulated data, and can make accurate predictions, but Austin begins with a blank sheet of paper.
Goodwood knows that it can sell all its tickets. Companies and stallholders know how many people they can expect. A seller of books or memorabilia, knows the cost of a pitch and can make a decision. Austin does not have that information yet, from a standing start, it is going to stage a world class event and must turn a profit.
It has to be able to accommodate all the fans who want to be there while empty seats would be seized on as a mark of failure. There are people in the American sports media who would do that. They are entrenched in their own world and they really do wear blazers, their hair really is sculpted and Ron Burgundy is included in their prayers.
America is insular when it comes to sport. Nobody else plays baseball, gridiron 'football' (no foot, no ball), or basketball at a serious level. Formula One is an intrusion into their world.
Americans tend not to participate in international sport save on an individual basis. You get athletes, tennis players, cyclists, men in silly trousers with golf bats, and so on. Americans do not know what it is like to play Australia for the Ashes or to face India, or the West Indies, at cricket. In terms of sport, America is remarkably naive. A tournament between two local teams playing a local game is billed as The World Series, for Heaven's sake.
NASCAR puts on a terrific show and there have been attempts to translate it elsewhere, but these have remained minor categories, mainly in England and Germany. Germany is hugely enthusiastic for Country music, yee-haw. American sport has not travelled which is odd given the influence of so much American culture in the movies, popular music, television, clothing and just about everything.
A crucial decision is the seating capacity at Austin and it has to be guesswork. At Silverstone, there was a capacity crowd of 105.000. There are American college football stadiums that can boast that. At the first US GP held at Indianapolis, 175,000 fans showed up. This is a long way short of the crowd for the Indy 500 or the 400-mile NASCAR race, but it is still impressive by F1 standards.
Build a facility which caters for at least 100,000 people and you are effectively creating a town. You have to get the roads right, and the supply of power and water. You have to get the drainage right because everyone attending will need to take a leak and maybe a dump.
In 1959 I was part of a small team that turned RAF Rufforth into a race track. We laid down cones and straw bales from a low-load trailer. Spectator safety was a series of iron poles with rope strung between them. Spectators were perfectly safe. The run-off areas were huge and a car on crossply tyres did not spin far.
We used linked fencing to mark off the paddock and next day a double decker bus arrived to act as race control and commentary point. I am sure that we also provided ablutions, but the horror of them has been erased from my memory. They would have been canvas screens, buckets and holes in the ground, with a spade to bury the poo. Back then, we expected less, but it was good enough for Jim Clark.
For a long time I would not take a woman to a motor race and it came down to the fact I would not subject her to the long line outside of a loo. Organisers never got the fact that women take longer. Only when I had access to the BRDC Suite at Silverstone, did I take the memsahib to races. I refused to subject her to the humiliation of standing in a queue, possibly in the rain, to use a foul facility.
Some circuits have grown. Silverstone has, over 62 years, and mistakes have been ironed out. I use Silverstone as an example because it was not designed, as Monza was. It was set up in the same way that we set up the first Rufforth circuit and it was as primitive.
Silverstone has never been able to compete with the new circuits financed by governments because it has had to pay its way. There are things going on there almost every day of the year: driving schools, track days, testing, you name it. You want to organise a corporate day? Silverstone's very name is a lure. It is a name to drop into conversation around the water cooler.
The track has a 62-year history and is an established brand, only Monza has a longer history. You cannot hire Monaco for the day, though you can drive the course. The current Spa is a closed circuit, though you can drive round parts of the old course because they were, and remain, public roads.
Austin has to find a heap of money just to build the facility, before anyone has bought a ticket. It is one huge ask but, after initial misgivings, I am feeling comfortable. Tavo Hellmund is ticking the right boxes for me.
There are going to be problems, of course. These days, we have come to expect an easy experience, but some circuits have a lot of experience while some of the new facilities can draw on an underclass to pamper visitors.
Goodwood has established a conduit for students to earn money by operating car parks and waiting on tables. This has developed over time, counting the horse track, more than 200 years, but Austin must get it right first time out. It is a massive task and one that we tend to take for granted.
At the second Festival of Speed, I had been working with Stirling Moss and a film crew. At the end of the second day, we walked to the prize giving ceremony and I chatted to the Greatest Driver of All about his experience. Sir God, then plain Mr God, said that he had enjoyed himself. He said, 'Look around, there is not one scrap of litter in sight. Treat people right and they will respond.'
Shortly afterwards, I told the story to a key member of the organising team. He said, 'He did not take into account the litter disposal teams, that was an operation in itself.'
A modern sporting event is like a swan on a lake, it appears to glide majestically, but what you do not see is its wrinkled webbed feet working away like fury under the water.
That is the trick that Tavo Hellmund and his team must pull off. One of Austin's problems is that it is a private enterprise initiative. Another is that its fiercest critics will come from close to home. Because the men in blazers and lacquered heads need to maintain their status, they will be unsparing.
Then there is the fact that most people attending will have spent a fair amount over and above the cost of a ticket. Austin, the city, has to go up a couple of gears. It is a popular venue for trade conventions, but they do not involve really big numbers, six figure numbers. Hertz and Avis will have to raise their game as well. The ramifications are enormous and very complicated.
Despite all that, I am sure that Texas will deliver. This is not a spur of the moment enterprise, it has been planned for years.
All I can say is that I wish it every success because I have my bed booked nearby, in New Braunfels, the self-proclaimed Sausage Capital of Texas. I am confident that I will have a ball in Austin, the city that brought on a favourite of mine, Willie Nelson. Yew-Haw!
Mike Lawrence
mike.lawrence@pitpass.com
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