pictures
Grand Prix a Bonanza for Downtown Businesses
The return of the Grand Prix to downtown is being hailed as a success according to this Free Press article. I think this bodes well for future races and Detroit's image. From the point of view of visitors, Downtown Detroit has to be a completely different entity from the ghost town of ruins and abandonment it was in 1991 when the race was last held there.
As for the race, which I watched on TV, this was a far better course than the old downtown course or Belle Isle‘s. Both of those were slow and neither had practically any opportunities for lead change. By contrast, There were over 200 position changes in this race, and the long Jefferson straightaway let the big engines go wide-open, all making the race exciting.
Mid-point of Jefferson straight away.
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End of straight away turn.
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Why GP went to Belle Isle
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Richard
sounds like there is a shortage of parking lots downtown needed for large events,maybe people should advocate for more so it is not a inconvenience once a year for a couple of days.
Having the GP on Belle isle was just weird,what was the reasoning behind that in the first place?
The downtown streets were too bumpy, the manhole covers blew off under the suction of the cars, Dennis Archer I think was Mayor so he allowed it to move to BI and Penske wanted the view of the city in the background and the fountain as a "decoration". The businesses downtown complained too. The fountain is actually very fragile and the damage partially caused by jumping in it is still apparent. The basin is still leaking, the leaks caused the underground mechanical action area of pumps to be off limits for any human due to mold for a long time. I'm so glad the GP is off the island but unhappy that taxpayers are paying again to have the streets repaved for the race just like they did on Belle Isle. I'm sure MDOT will repave more of the bumpy track downtown before next year. Hope they never come back to the island and Penske should pay to have the fountain repaired. Oh, and the 10 acres of concrete in the paddock has to go.