An Epic Day in Austin, Texas

260 days. That is how long curious Austinites, die-hard F1 fans and everyone in between had to wait since the first F1 USGP Press Conference in July 2010 and this week's coming out party in Austin, Texas. In Tavo's defense, to say they have been busy would be an understatement.

We arrived at the Palmer Events Center on a typical April afternoon in Austin: 80' F (27' C), sunny with a few clouds in the sky, and so many people frolicking about in the neighboring Zilker Park, you begin to wonder if anyone works a typical 9-5 job in this town. As evidenced throughout Austin's cohesive, collaborative, laid-back yet get-down-to-business vibe, we passed by the sunny fun-loving people in the park and walked into the Palmer Events Center, where we were transported to a high tech press conference with a platform for innovation and excitement, and some cool backdrops. The stage was bordered with two giant screens looping some new and some familiar snapshots of Austin; the Williams F1 car served as a focal point and photo op; and about 100 media and invited parties began to fill the room.

We mingled, ran into our friend USF2000 Driver Rodrigo Sanchez, met a few new folks and took our seats behind the "Reserved Row," not knowing who would join us, but impressed when we were joined by Del Valle School Board President Richard Vasquez, Austin City Manager Marc Off, Texas Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, Texas Sen. Kirk Watson, Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell (hard to see from this angle) and Council member Mike Martinez.

SPEED TV's iconic Bob Varsha welcomed everyone and noted that he had visited the construction site and was "impressed with what was being accomplished at the track site." Before introducing the founding team on stage, Red McCombs, Tavo Hellmund and Bobby Epstein, he also shared his newfound love for the city of Austin, and shared our sentiments that it is an active and entertaining town supported by the welcoming and fun-loving people of Austin.

You may recall that McCombs and Epstein were announced as the major financial backers at July's press conference and Tavo is the ring leader in this entire project. McCombs quickly took over and before announcing first order of business, the naming of the track, he reminded people of the scale and magnitude of this project, equating it to "a SuperBowl every year" for the city of Austin. There has been so much buzz around this press conference in the past week, including speculation about what was going to be announced, that we were confident a title sponsor would be named, thereby revealing something of the sort: "The AT&T Williams Momentum Park." That was my calculated guess because AT&T is headquarted in Texas and has strong business and historical ties to central Texas, that Williams F1 car keeps popping up, and Momentum Park was a name that was referenced via some online research.

Alas, McCombs, Epstein and Tavo revealed the track as "Circuit of the Americas - Home of the World Championships, United States," or "COTA" for short. I've heard some mixed reviews of the name, but the thought behind Circuit of the Americas was to tie in the United States with Canada, South and Latin America, where I think F1 fans might rival US F1 fans in number. I'm unable to embed the video here, but SPEED TV just posted a great 8 minute+ video of the highlights of the press conference. If the full press conference is published, we will share that video with you in the future. For now, you can watch the SPEED TV video of this F1 USGP April Press Conference by clicking here.

McCombs then invited Steve Sexton, F1US and now COTA President, to the stage and Steve also shared Varsha's sentiments of the warm welcome he has received as a new Austin resident. Then the discussion transitioned from the "Who" to the "What and Where." This is not just a race track, folks. The Circuit of the Americas is a destination: a high-end, multi-purpose development that has grown from 970 acres to 1,100 planned acres. Tavo began to paint a clearer picture of what we can expect at the Citcuit of the Americas:

• 40,000 square foot, 3-story tall conference center bordering the 300 yard pit area
• 14 executive suites, each 3,600 square feet with elevators, kitchens, latest A/V gear, high-speed connections and capacity for 75 people each (to be used by teams and sponsors on race weekends for meetings and hospitality)
• Main grandstand includes luxury suites for business entertaining and capacity of about 750, including commercial kitchen and cafe
• Media and conference center - business conferences, seminars and receptions, and converting to international media center
• 500-person banquet hall (private or corporate dinners and nonprofit fundraising galas)
• 5,400 square foot Medical Building with year-round use as a training facility (professionals and students) and converting to trauma care center for driver-athletes
• Live music entertainment venue during race and non-race weekends, including indoor and outdoor space, and spanning the equivilent of 3 football fields wide with a capacity of 35,000
• 22-story Observation Deck providing breath-taking and memorable views of the destination set amidst the gorgeous Texas Hill Country
• Entertainment and festival venue with capacity of 35,000

This article, "Circuit of the Americas Partners with Texas Schools," is a great overview of the educational institutions that have jumped on board with COTA and their specific roles "linking classroom learning to practical application work." We are really hoping to hear that Austin's own University of Texas at Austin and Texas State University-San Marcos are also jumping on board!

Tavo continued to highlight the business and economic impact of the facility not only during this fast-paced construction phase that we are currently in, but also the sustained opportunities for local and global companies for the duration of the 10-year contract with Formula One Management and F1 racing:

• Agreement with Austin Energy to build a new energy sub-station in Del Valle
• Research and development opportunities almost solidified with two large auto manufacturers
• Potentially 1300-employees tied to the multi-purpose facility
• Construction expenditures alone of over $400MM, with a focus to keep 80% or more of that in the pockets of local Texan businesses
• In addition to plans for on-site retail, the COTA team is in talks to bring a major hotel developer to the development
• In the course of a single F1 race weekend (which, as we know, is only 3-5 nights out of the facility's 365 days of planned business), you can expect 300,000 guests to spend 3-5 nights in the Austin and surrounding Central Texas areas and spending an average of $1400-1600

Tavo then shifted the focus back to the "Who and What" by introducing two icons in an equally exciting motorsport field: 1993 World GP Motorcycle Champion Kevin Schwantz and 2010 MotoGP "Rookie of the Year" Ben Spies. Schwantz made the highly-anticipated announcement of the addition of MotoGP motorcycle racing to the circuit's lineup. MotoGP is to the world of motorcycle racing what Formula One is to the world of automotive racing: they are both the cream of the crop in their respective fields; partnering the highest advancements in technology and innovation to deliver non-stop excitement to their large international audiences. The introduction of MotoGP's partnership with The Circuit of The Americas facility was met with energetic support from the crowd as Schwantz also reported a 10-year agreement was met to bring MotoGP to Texas from 2013-2022.

While I was live-tweeting snippits of the press conference via our Twitter feed, I heard Schwantz ask Spies "How excited are you to be able to come and race in Austin in 2013?" His response was "Very!" and I think you can expect to see an expansion of our COME AND RACE IT© product line to show our support of MotoGP's introduction to the Texas lineup.

As the press conference wrapped up and we were directed to make our way to the shuttles leaving for the construction tour of the facility, we snagged two great interviews with Bob Varsha of SPEED TV and Christian Epp of Tilke Engineering. You can enjoy them on our dedicated Press Conference page or via our Vimeo Channel.

For all high-def photos and official facility renderings, check out our Gallery.

Next up from us: our recap of the site tour, and hopefully next up from COTA: the "When" and more announcements on the "Who" regarding this decelopment of epic, Texas-sized proporstions.

In the meantime, tell us what you thought of the Press Conference and enjoy the first-ever video of the drive up Turn 1 at The Circuit of The Americas!

On Location at the Circuit Of The Americas from The Austin Grand Prix on Vimeo.

Is Momentum Building at Austin's Newest Park?

Austin's track is gaining momentum, YEEHAW! It's been an amazing couple of weeks since all activity at the SXSW Film, Music and Interactive conference in Austin, Texas. Let's recap:

-Congratulations to Asif Kapadia, Manish Pandey, Working Title Films, Universal and all parties involved with the SENNA film, as release dates have been progressing:

• 13 April - Valencia, Spain - Spanish premiere

• 4 and 6 May - Toronto - Canadian International documentary film festival, "Hot Docs"

• 3 June - UK Release

• 15-19 June - Sydney, Australia Film Festival

• 21 July - Australian Release

• July - US Release

-Asif and the SENNA online outlets (Twitter, Facebook, web) have been working hard to keep us all informed of the latest release info. It is motivating to read inquires from fans all over the world: "When can I see SENNA in MY hometown!?" Keep asking and keep coming back here. We will continue to help bring this movie to you because it truly is an epic film which we so thoroughly enjoyed. Believe it or not, we have even more #SENNAxSW content to share with you in the coming weeks!

Congratulations to the entire Formula One drivers and teams for the amazing first two races of the season. Although Bahrain was cancelled, Sebastian Vettell gave everyone a run for their money at Australia and Malaysia. Check out this Formula 1 interview here.

And now...there have been many reports in the past few weeks that suggest development at the future home of the Austin Grand Prix is racing ahead.

-Tom O'Keefe published his recap of his Texas visit on Autosport today; you can read it here.

-Dave Doolittle, of the Austin American-Statesman, reports that zombie roadkill is halting F1 construction at the site! Oh no!

-Bob Varsha, of SPEED TV, said "We have a delegation from SPEED that’s going to go visit the track and assess the situation with our own eyeballs on April 13."

-During SPEED TV's airing of the Malaysian Grand Prix on April 9/10, they also made an announcement regarding the upcoming April 12 "special news conference" and said they plan on bringing you a live feed on Tuesday night at 8pm ET.

-Austin's KVUE News posted a supershort video of earth-movers and construction at the site from the ground level, however we're still partial to our exclusive aerial video which F1 Russia picked up and sent us viral! Here it is if you'd rather not dig through our archives:

Exclusive: First Aerial Video of Austin Track Construction from The Austin Grand Prix on Vimeo.

So, with all the recent rumblings, we want to know what YOU think will happen at tomorrow's news conference. Here are a few ideas we've heard and/or made up over a few cups of coffee this AM:

• Tavo Hellmund and Bob Varsha will skydive out of an airplane to give you an idea of a real aerial descent upon the future track site, since they weren't too happy with our photos or video.

• Since the Bahrain race was cancelled, construction is really going to ramp up and the Austin race will actually happen in <gasp> 2011 later this year!

• Red Bull is going to return to Austin, the home of their largest U.S. Flugtag audience of 85,000, and create a permanent Flugtag stage constructed over the F1 pit area. (What's Flugtag? Read recap of 2007 event here.) by Lynn M. Stone

• The official F1 USGP team is going to formally name the track: "The Best Little Race House In Texas."

• SPEED TV will start the highly-anticipated 24/7 webcam of progress, so you never have to miss a second of the non-stop action as earthmovers crawl around the track!

• Bernie decided that in addition to artificial rain, he would also like to create artificial snow for future driving "excitement"...in Texas...in the summer.

• While Tavo and Bob dive into the track location, Bernie will be on the ground to catch them atop his new ride, this lovely Texas Longhorn:

What are you expecting tomorrow and what would you like to see?

Before I go, I wanted to introduce you to our expanded product line at COME AND RACE IT©! We now have shirts in 4 different colors:

Natural, Texas Orange, Heather Grey and Ladies Mocha Brown! (Click on the pictures above to go directly to the order page.)

Here's our shirt Down Under at the Australian Grand Prix last month! We would love to get pics of you in your shirts at every Grand Prix and from all over the world. Please send them to us at COMEANDRACEIT {at} gmail.com. Thank you for your ongoing support!

DNQ - So Sorry You Nearly Died, Mr. Webber

At the risk of coming across all Negative Nancy, erm, Negative Norm I mean, I feel like we Austinites should be preparing some sort of apology, or better yet

and

proactively a Plan of Action, to assist visitors who wind up lost, shrieking with terror, at the inanity of our road naming "system", the ineptitude of most drivers in the city and I35 in general. 

I'm not sure South by Southwest is a particularly apt control for the

How Bad Could It Be?

experiment, simply because there are so many people in the city, walking, riding, driving, ambling, crashing, and falling on our streets that it really bears no resemblance to what things are normally like here in fair Austin. If you aren't "doing" SXSW with total commitment, and willing to experience and accept any circumstance that might befall you

Courtesy of www.velocci.com

(a friend of mine was run over by a train of Segways, which he finds more of a point of pride, something to tell the grandkids, than an annoyance), then you probably just stay at home and pretend the downtown area has been invaded by

Captain Trips

or

Mongol invaders

or

zombies

until it passes like the mist from Stephen King's mind. But what's going to happen when the comparatively small but nonetheless horde-like throngs of people come for the first ever United States Grand Prix in Austin Texas, in Wheneverber of 2012?

We need an ambassador to explain the clusterfrak that is Austin traffic and assuage the anguish, because if anyone so much as leaves their hotel to wander about the city, I'm afraid we'll never see them again. Could you imagine, as a ridiculous yet terrifying example, if

Mark Webber

decides to take his rented Chrysler Sebring and head from the Four Seasons up to

The Draught House

for a pint? The scandal! All it takes is

one car trip

to MoPac, and they might as well have entered the

Parisian catacombs

without a light. MoPac/Loop 1? And if you're south coming from the airport and need to get onto MoPac, especially going south, how do you begin to explain the route without having them end up in

Albuquerque

? Loop 360/Capital of Texas Highway? Highway 183/Research Boulevard? Or My God! What if they wander up to 290/Koenig Lane/Northland Drive/2222??? The

naming alone

is an Abbott and Costello bit. 

Then there's the elephant in the room. I'm looking at you, Austin drivers. Glass houses and black kettles and everything, but come on. This is just getting ridiculous. My wife and I have a game, more of a contest really, called How Many Times Were You Almost Killed on the Way Home Today? It's a lot of fun, for the whole family even! Points are based on the agreed upon ineptitude of the driver who almost offs you (wandering across lanes, reaching for a dropped cell phone, sleeping are obvious and oft cited circumstances), compounded by the speed involved (double points for combined speed as a result of near head-on collisions) and the number of other vehicles, property and/or pedestrians also nearly snuffed out in the blink of an eye. You do lose points, however, if the nearly-an-explosion was the result of someone deciding within the last 100 feet that, "Oh, THERE'S my exit!" and cutting across four lanes of traffic at a near 90-degree angle while doing 70+ MPH. Because really, you'd only end up with scores more like arena football, and that just gets boring.

Griping about traffic on an F1 blog? Trite and useless, but in terms of bridging that gap between fans and the city? We need a plan NOW.

Austin traffic sucks

. 

Courtesy of www.capmac.org

OK, so did you know there's a race this weekend? And suddenly my incessant,

"Don't count out Button this year

" diatribes don't seem so fanboyish, now do they? This season is potentially low hanging fruit for a driver like Button. Yes, even my grandma knows he's renowned for his smooth driving, but in a year when it's decided

tires specifically designed to suck

should be used, he's poised to capitalize on the situation better than most other drivers, save

maybe Webber

. Vettel, Hamilton and Alonso, all superior competitors to Button, are also far more aggressive. I've seen those guys eat tires like Homer eats donuts. I (and everyone else, honestly) foresee the pits being a lot busier, at least until they can adapt, and Button staying out longer while turning in consistent lap times. Toss in the moveable rear wing and KERS, and slower traffic becomes less of an issue than it has in the past. He could really create some gaps out there. The final practice session in Australia seems to also bear out the fact McLaren didn't know how good their cars were until they decided to stop trying to be too clever for their own good and slap a more conventional exhaust on them. Lo and behold. Never count out Whitmarsh.

Also never count out Ross Brawn. The Merc team's Rosberg and Schumacher didn't shred in practice, but they were both fast and probably good enough for Q3, with a bit of luck. Because the other half of the stuff that isn't as exciting as the actual racing drama is that pit and race strategy will play a much larger role in outcomes than in the past. Between tire and wing and KERS management,

drivers are going to have a lot to do

in addition to driving perfect lines and not getting killed. Smart team bosses, and Brawn is truly the

Ozymandias

of F1, will be calling those shots from on high. Same as they've always done really, but it just seems the more complicated the cars get and the more aspects of the race the drivers are expected to control, the teams that will do the best are the teams with a General Patton in control, who understands every individual action the entire team performs, from the pit member who holds the fresh tires to the driver in the cockpit, and can visualize the entire clockwork mechanism in motion. This year is going to be a chess match, and probably as interesting from a management perspective as it will undoubtedly be on the circuit. I think it'll be a surprisingly good year for Mercedes, but I'm not going to say better for Schumacher or Rosberg.  

Yet

.

Strap in. Formula 1 2011, here we go.

EXCLUSIVE: First Aerial Video of Austin Track Construction

Ever since I snapped the first aerial pictures of the future Austin track site out the window of my Southwest Airline flight in November, we’ve been pumped about this next post. An old friend and pilot took us up yesterday to shoot some amazing aerial footage of the track site.

The following video shows the view from our flight path coming from downtown Austin, which is west of the track site. We flew in over downtown Austin and then headed due east over the Austin Bergstrom International Airport (“ABIA”), paused for the commercial flight pattern (while two planes took off, which was pretty cool to watch from above) and then headed south to the track.  The Austin track is situated about 2.5 miles southeast of ABIA.  We proceeded to fly clockwise around the track. It was easy to point out the location from the air as the biggest thing to notice is the large, sand-filled rectangular area which borders the road FM 812 on the south end of the track.  Last week the Statesman reported that the attorney for the USGP project, Richard Suttle "confirmed that the layout for the track has been cleared," but from yesterday's flight it looked to us as though only a third of the Austin land has been graded. Maybe we are misunderstanding the context of his quote. What do you think?

Exclusive: First Aerial Video of Austin Track Construction from The Austin Grand Prix on Vimeo.

More Video and High Resolution Pictures coming soon!!

Soundtrack courtesy of Ghostland Observatory, one of our favorite Austin bands, check them out on MySpace.

A special thanks to Ben and Coy, without which this would not have been possible!

Construction Update: Site Grading in Progress

Construction Update: Site Grading at the Track Site from The Austin Grand Prix on Vimeo.

Things have changed quite a bit at the track in just the last few weeks as grading of the southern portion of the track is underway.  This is starting to turn out to be a pretty exciting time right now as the site is really starting to change from the original landscape. I took a drive out to the site this afternoon and snapped some pics and threw together a quick diagram to show our audience what is happening where (images), so they can get a feel for what's going on out here in Austin.

The construction entrance to the facilities, Caterpillar in the backgroundThe main portion of the work is concentrated on the southern edge of the site, just south of where the proposed main grandstands will be located.  This is where a welcome center and parking will be, just above the main entrance for the entire complex off of Highway 812.  As of today, this area is being graded by heavy equipment (i.e. leveling the dirt to the desired angle for drainage and construction) and the construction crews are settling in, setting up temporary offices and other facilities.Heavy Machines moving dirt and leveling for construction

There were probably 20 heavy machines moving during the late afternoon, moving dirt from other locations and compacting land where new dirt is added.  There were additional crews on site, including surveyors and engineers, as well as a small crew working on the north-western perimeter.  It's pretty apparent that things are moving along at a fast pace, and the landscape is quickly turning into a construction site day by day.

We know that you will be excited to see our images from today, go to the gallery to see more...

 A view from the southeast corner, looking northwest across the site towards downtown Austin

Exclusive: F1 Design Studio by UT Architecture

Tavo Hellmund spoke recently at the TEDxAustin Conference  emphasizing the impact the completed F1 Facilities will have on the local community by pursuing an approach of long term sustainability of the region.  This will be accomplished through the implementation of not only the race track, but also the year round calendar of events which will include an emphasis on education.UT Architecture Students observe collegue during her review  Though Tavo and most Austinites might not know it yet, the impact on the educational community has already been positively effected even though the facilities aren't even built yet.  A design studio consisting of undergraduate students from the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture recently explored the potential for track designs and hotel facilities at the track site. 

UT Architecture Student Valerie Lyall explains her track design concept to a guest review panel

As some of you may know, I am a graduate student in the Masters of Architecture program and spend every waking moment in studio when I am not working hard to bring you the latest on The Austin Grand Prix.  Though I was finished with my studio I was listening in on other reviews and stumbled upon theirs and snapped some pictures.  Though I didn't get a chance to really get involved in the discussion, I set out to get connected with the students and professor about their work.

Guest Reviewers included Professor Uli Dangel (right), who worked on the TAG McLaren Headuarters in Woking, England while with Foster+Partners

The studio project was coordinated by Larry Doll, Associate Professor at UT Architecture, and was a 5 week intensive design studio about developing a code within existing tracks from the 2010 season to help formulate a new potential design for the Austin facilities.  The students then completed their project by proposing a new hotel to be located on the area and chose where and how to integrate it into the complex nature of a their track designs.

Students Brittany Milas and Kim Villavicencio (that's right boys, the girls love this F1 stuff too) where kind enough to offer their designs to us to share with our audience in a hope to raise awareness of the kinds of values and discussions that go into designing a F1 facility.  Brittany worked with the Turkey Grand Prix and Kim with Brazilian Grand Prix track as their initial research into how the variation in track characteristics determines the unique conditions for the drivers and the fans. 

Kim Villavicencio explores G-Forces as the design code for a new track in AustinEach student's work focused on their new "code" derived from their studies of factors such as elevation changes, g-forces, radii of turns and others.  The solutions proposed by the students began to quantify why the Belgian Grand Prix (SPA) elevation change is so critical, or how the Brazilian Grand Prix (Interlagos) simplistic plan achieves difficult handling conditions because of its compound curves.  The solutions were all amazing in their own right, attempting to quantify the specific character that makes each track so special and what it means to create the new American F1 identity through the track design.

Brittany Milas designs a cantilevered hotel over her track design

All of the questions raised by these talented and ambitious young designers exemplifies the amazing technical complexities of this amazing sport.  Through just a five week program, they raised new questions about the concept of track design and may well have discovered a new way to create a new facility around the world. 

Though modest in scale, this project signifies that the F1 facilities has already and will continue to positively impact the lives of countless other young Americans as they look to Formula 1 as a source of inspiration for their dreams and future careers.

more images in the gallery

The Austin Grand Prixtm will continue to bring the latest news on the local influence felt by the new track development in features titled "Community Impact." Please respect the ideas and designs of the students as we have received their exclusive permission to highlight their work for this post.