Formula 1 coming to Austin, Baby!

Isn't the $25M just up front...for a ten year commitment? Chump change, and any state employee or resident should easily justify quite a return from that investment. I mean, really, this is the biggest even to ever hit Austin and right up there as one of the biggest ever in Texas.
 
I am watching the 2nd practice session and the topic of the U.S. race has come up a couple of times. This second or third time they mention it they went more into it. They talked about how the Turkish race is not attended as much as others but that the drivers looove the circuit or track. The same man who designed that will do ours here in Austin.

They said the drivers were amazingly informed about Austin and liked it, they are excited. This surprised the announcer's of the awareness that the driver's had about it before the announcement even. NICE!!!

They further talked about how Austin is "dominated by the University of Texas Longhorns" and the course will have hills. Schumacher is stoked about going to Texas and his wife too. She likes to ride horses and he likes motorcycles. They just keep on saying amazing stuff about Austin and how the drivers are stoked. I have goose bumps all over again!
 
also, the Formula 1 debrief they aired fri night had an interview with tavo hellmund. the whole beginning of the show was devoted to it

todays statesman has some more articles as well
 
I forgot to mention that, taco, thanks for filling them in. I think they air the debrief again tonight at 11 or so. It's good stuff.
 
The sooner they come out and let everyone know where th etrack will be and what it will look like, the sooner most of the questions will go away.

I would put my Austin offce out there.
 
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Abu Dhabi is involved. As a former AMD employee, I know that they have ties to Austin that run very deep.

That is one reason I have not had such serious doubts as others about the likelihood of this event actually coming to fruition.

As for a road race, I actually love the idea and my ideal course runs from downtown, out through the hills of Camp Mabry, and back downtown. Maybe even some segment of it running along Lake Austin Boulevard, how sweet would THAT be??
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But ultimately, havdng a dedicated, purpose-built track will bring many more opportunities to Austin than would a road race, and F1 doesn't have much interest in adding additional road races to the season anyway.

But it would be pretty freaking sweet to watch those cars whip past Hula Hut, I have to say!
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Let me ask a dumb question: isn't this pretty much set? If F1 makes a public announcement like that, could it still fail to happen? Or has a race deal like this ever fallen through after making the deal like this one for Austin?
 
It is all up to the Texas bunch. If they produce a quality track on time everything will go as planned. If they don't Bernie keeps what he has been paid and the F1 circus goes onto the next venue.
 
Well, that linked page is already gone. However, a few days after the whole thing was announced I was driving through the area after playing golf at Jimmy Clay. As I was traveling north through Elroy I was thinking that it may be a decent area. I then noticed construction signs, and a City of Austin project to extend water lines out there (I didn't know they were in the city limits), so this got me suspicious and kind of looking for a suitable piece of land to fit the description. I saw some tracts that may have been acceptable, but certainly not the "killer location" described by Hellmund. Feeling like the whole thing was probably nothing, I took the hard left hand bend in the road at the top of the ridge and almost drove off of the road. You can literally see the entire city of Austin from there. There was not much development around but there were for sale signs on nearly every piece of land, so I tried to envision a track on the hillside and realized that it could easily be built in such a way that spectators could see the whole thing. I don't know how much more "killer" a site gets unless it was meant literally and includes a drop off of a shear cliff into a pit of fire.
 
I have a friend that lives out in that direction so I am anxious to go see what you are talking about. Can you give some specifics as to names of roads or whatever? Thanks.
 
take Elroy Rd north from FM 812. Just continue down that road through town, until the sharp left turn down the hill. You'll know what I'm talking about when you see it. If you're not sure, you're not there yet.
 
4th, I drove out there this a.m. after work and took a look. I assume you're talking about the piece of land on the right as you drive down the hill (NE corner of Elroy Rd. & Kellam).

If that's the land I only have two words as to what kind of road course could go in there:

Holy crap!

ETA: The AAS graphic seemed to imply that the land was on the left as you come down the hill, behind the homes that are on the left. If you look at The Link , it's the land to the west of Elroy Road. Huge and sloping down from the top of the hill just like the other plot. Couldn't really see it from the road, but I'll bet it's at least as nice.

Elevation changes out there are outstanding for a road course, access to 130 is great, airport is 3-4 miles away as the crow flies, and the view is spectacular as you mentioned.
 
Elroy? Isn't that the Dueling Banjo center of the Austin area?
How about a road course up Mount Bonnell Drive, so we can watch from the Dry Creek Cafe upper deck?
There's already a great hairpin curve down there.
 
I can imagine that the mere purchase of the land alone would cost well over 200 million dollars at Mt. Bonnell. Heck, I think I just got charged typing it.
 
Mt. Bonnell Road is fun, esp the hairpin. Imagine it in an F1 car. Never gonna happen though.

BTW, I forgot to mention that much to my surprise when I was at the Canadian GP I saw no less than 6 other Longhorn hats and 1 t-shirt, and I also met a nice couple from Kerrville...the wife went to UT but wasn't representin'.
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Also, I just found The Link .

A lot has been made of the fact that TH didn't seem ready to go when Bernie announced Austin was the choice. This story would seem to explain that, imho. Bernie got fed up with NJ and said, "Enough, we're going with Austin", made the announcement to make it official, and was done with it. It was way ahead of TH, who probably didn't even really see it coming at the time. At that time, everyone thought the race was going to NJ or Monticello.
 
Mandingo, probably a good guess. TH probably had not nailed down all of the property when Bernie spilled the beans. Any way we should know all of the specifics in 10 days or so.
 
Here we go - welcome to the wrld of F1. Link
The F1 and FIA establishments (management) really want nothing to do with the United States. In other words, each is hoping for another failure to prove to the major teams that F1 cannot succeed in the US. This despite the major teams applying pressure to get back to the US.

This all fits Bernie's MO. Make an announcement on his timing attempting to manage the situation to his favor. TH had better explain all of this next week and dirt has got to start flying.
 
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