Detroit Grand Prix Stopped Because Of Detroit’s Terrible Roads (DNC City = Crumbling Infrastructure)

Jalopnik ^ | June 3, 2012 | Matt Hardigree

[DogByte6RER]

Detroit Grand Prix Stopped Because Of Detroit’s Terrible Roads

The first running of the IndyCar Detroit Grand Prix since 2008 was red-flagged this afternoon after a piece of the track started to crumble, causing driver James Hinchcliffe to go flying into the wall. As you can see in the video (YouTube link provided below), he was not happy about it.

Indy's return to Detroit's Belle Isle course was supposed to be another signal of the rebirth of the American automaker. Instead, it's just been a reminder of Detroit's failing infrastructure and Indy's inability to make anything outside of the Indy 500 remotely interesting.

Race organizers patched up the cracks in the road with a filler that, it seems, couldn't survive a weekend of racing abuse and started coming up earlier in the race. The Grand Prix was allowed to continue until Hinchcliffe hit a chunk and lost his steering, causing him to kiss the tires.

"The f*cking track just came up. They leave that big piece of track just sitting there. What the f*ck?" Hinchcliffe screamed after plowing into the rubber. This led them to red flag the race. Since then they've been hanging out in the paddock waiting for the track to get patched.

UPDATE: The race eventually finished, but shortened with multiple yellow flags.

(Note by DogByte6RER: Scott Dixon won the shortened Detroit Grand Prix)

[equaviator]

The project had some major quality issues. They should have gone the extra mile to bring that track up to speed (cough). Instead, they called it good and could only run half a race.

If it were up to me, I’d have the Detroit Gran Prix run at Stoney Creek Metropark....after some minor alterations to the main road’s layout.

[equaviator]

[6SJ7]

This is not really an example of deetroit roads. It is Belle Isle, a seldom visited chunk of land floating in the Detroit river...

Evocative imagery ping!

[Pietro]

Didn’t Obama say he wants to make every city in America like Detroit?

[OrangeHoof]

Oh, well. The carjackers would have eventually stopped them anyway...

[BillyBonebrake]

Repairing concrete is easy if you know what you’re doing. The race organizers didn’t know what they were doing.

[cripplecreek]

I'd use the old road course at MIS. I'd extend it to run up across the backstretch and infield to the tri oval (making the pit area available and back across the infield to the old road course again.



I might actually go to one of these things if it were there.

[gymbeau]

I miss the old Michigan 500 with the Indycars. Was a great race!
Yesterday’s broadcast was touting the resurgence of Detroit and GM (positioned via the Chevy engines that dominated until Indy), then the track fell apart and showed it’s just one more dying part of the region.

cheers
Jim

[nascarnation]

Didn’t the MIS “long” road course actually have a loop that went outside the oval at one time? I remember going there with some SCCA racer friends in the early 70s.

As I remember his “bugeye” Sprite looked pretty small on that track, LOL.

[cripplecreek]

MIS is in conservative territory. When Roger Penske owned the place he coordinated with Lenewee and Jackson county so when the track was resurfaced the counties took the old surface and milled it to use on the surrounding roads.

For two weekends a year, Brooklyn Michigan becomes the 3rd largest city in the state. That's a major economic shot in the arm for this area even though its mostly part time work. Lots of under the table money is made on race weekends too.

I've gone to a few Indy car races at MIS but I would really rather watch them on a road course. My course layout would be long but it would combine oval track speeds with road course turns. + a fair amount of elevation change.

[cripplecreek]

The road course is still there outside the backstretch. Its just not used for any kind of real racing.

[equaviator]

That could work!

[gymbeau]

Thanks for the info. I’d rather watch an oval live (not that I have!) to see more of the track and the action.

OTOH, I got to attend the Edmonton race a couple of years back as a guest of Honda and it was VIP treatment all weekend. Really a blast!And they had TV monitors in the suite so we could see what TV saw, which was pretty well everything.

Still, I watched it again on TV when I got home and it was amazing how different the experiences were.

cheers,
Jim

[RansomOttawa]

The Detroit Grand Prix used to be one of my favourite races back in the CART days, because the roads were hell on the cars and it meant a high attrition rate.

Nice to know some things never change . . .

[combat_boots]

Shame on you, people who caused the Detroit mess. Shame on you all.

I will always have a great memory of visiting Detroit twice, once in the early 1990s and once in 2001. It had gone downhill fast.

But in my youth, a family vacation took us there in its prime. It shone like a diamond. I remember an antique car show, which was stacked end to end with gorgeous, 100 point cars. An ivory Cadlilac of the 1930s, custom built, comes to mind.

Shame on you.

It’s not enough that I am angry or embarrassed at this. Behind it all, my heart hangs low for what was a treasure and symbol of American industrial might.