Friday, December 7, 2012

Austin’s F1 future is bright

Listened to the Trackside Boyz last Thursday night and got a little bit wound-up over the conjecture towards the COTA circuit’s future... As I’d say that the Circuit Of The Americas future is bright; as this makes me flash back to seeing Timbuk 3’s hit song being performed by The Bodine’s I believe; NO! NOT those ‘RASSCAR Bodine’s... Y’all know that late 1980’s hit song: “The Future’s so Bright, I’ve gotta wear Shades!” Seeing this rendition at a long ago South X Southwest outdoors concert; but I digress...

And even if they’re supposedly “saturating” their marketplace with a bunch ‘O races; Hmm? Isn’t that the purpose of building a state of the art facility? Which perhaps this $400m project will become the model for future venues?

As an aside note to the multiple series to make their mark upon COTA in 2013, i.e.; Moto GP, V8 Supercars, Grand Am and WEC, (World Endurance Championship) the track has wisely built a 15,000-seat outdoor concert amphitheatre with Live Nation having already been tabbed as its exclusive promoter - and I’m also told the venue will be used for the upcoming South X Southwest festival.

Thus as I vainly tried poondin’ out an eccentric email to Kevin Lee - which I gave up upon sending since I was having visual issues in regards to firing off the message; URGH! I’d simply hoped to tell him that the COTA F1 race was “GURR-REAT!!!” and the track’s attendance was comprised of 80% of the attendees being from the International market with the largest segment of these being from Mexico; of which Shane from Down Under beat  me to my next point; DAGG NABBIT YOU AUSSIE; Hya! As Shane tweeted how there was one Mexicali driver to root for.

‘Whale actually it’ll be two Mexican drivers in F1 next year, with Sauber promoting test & reserve driver Esteban Gutiérrez  to its second race seat while Sergio Perez jumps to McLaren to fill the void left by Lewis Hamilton’s departure.

Thus with its close proximity to the border, Circuit Of The Americas Formula 1 future will stay bright awhile - at least until the possible Mexican GP in 2014 - which hopefully will become the fourth Norte  Americano’s Amigo instead of Long Beach, as does the US really deserve three Grand Prix’s?

Also, the sanctioning fee equals $25m per year, which was part of Austin resident’s upheaval towards the event, especially with the “Economy” and the onslaught of local teacher firings... As perhaps Rick Perry and Susan Combs will seek a rebate, now that it’s been publicly announced that Nurburgring only pays $13m per bi-yearly event.

And while the tickets were definitely “Spendy,” approx 5-times my Indy 500 seat in Turn-2; they did include free Greyhound style shuttle bus transportation to the circuit all three days, which was very convenient and made going to/from the racetrack extremely easy, not to mention that the cities Fan Fest was ‘Mega! Which I’ve read gives it a feel of the past Adelaide events, which ironically is Austin’s ‘Seester-city...