CART World Trade Centre race

[nycuk]

The Motor Racing Circuits Database website details a proposed track layout for a CART race around the World Trade Centre site in Downtown Manhattan.

www.the-fastlane.co.uk/racingcircuits/UnitedStates/index.html

The proposal was for a planned race in 1993 and obviously never happened - but how vague were these plans? Did they get to an advanced stage? I must admit I had no idea such a plan was ever proposed.

[mountainstar]

Enough that there was even an event poster around. Speedgear I think had a bunch of them that were either original or reprints that they sold after 9/11. Really nice poster.

[Rob29]

New York sems to have problems getting events organzed.There was also a plan for an F1 race at Flushing Meadows in 85 .Was replaced by Brands Hatch.I recall seeing film of a lap of proposed circuit which included a hump back bridge.

[Oldtony]

The design work was done by an Australian firm, Weathered Howe of Southport, Queensland. They were engaged after they designed the portable set up for the Gold Coast race and put together the methods of constructing and stripping the barriers for that race.
It must have reached a reasonably advanced stage as there were a couple of the W&H blokes in NY for quite a while as I recall.

[lofong]

Originally Posted by nycuk

The proposal was for a planned race in 1993 and obviously never happened - but how vague were these plans? Did they get to an advanced stage? I must admit I had no idea such a plan was ever proposed.

AFAIK this was a very serious proposal, but typically it got bogged down in local politics. As I recall this was the promoters of the CART race at the Meadowlands that ran from 1984 through to 1991 in a couple of different configurations around the parking lot of Giants Stadium.

The race there outside the city was never a tremendous success. The temporary circuit was somewhat lacking and it never attracted huge crowds, so the organisers put their efforts into moving their event into the city, taking their Marlboro sponsorship with them, thinking they would at least attract more people (as the cars tried to avoid the potholes). I believe this race was actually planned for '92 and originally part of the CART calendar for that year, but an attempt may have been made to revive the plan for 1993.

As I recall, the Philip Morris involvement was a key issue (maybe the key issue?), despite them offering to spend a very large amount promoting non-smoking, which was a pretty unusual marketing strategy at that time.

On a similar tack, back in about 1982, Ecclestone was fairly set on holding an F-1 championship race in New York City. This was another seriously discussed plan that involved having the race in Flushing Meadow Park in the section around the lake that is borderered by the Grand Central, Van Wyck and the LIE park/expressways. This one also ran afoul of local politics. This time it was the environmentalists who were appalled at the destruction of a small number of trees necessary to create the circuit -- despite Bernie's offer to plant many times more in their place. The plan died fairly quickly but Bernie couldn't give up on the idea and it became a regular feature for about 4 or 5 seasons that a New York GP would be announced on the provisional F-1 calendar each season -- but disappear from updates as the start of the season drew close.

[nycuk]

Very interesting - thanks all of you for the info. What a shame this never happened - to see high powered single seaters racing around NYC would've been the stuff of dreams.

[lofong]

Originally Posted by Rob29

New York sems to have problems getting events organzed.There was also a plan for an F1 race at Flushing Meadows in 85 .Was replaced by Brands Hatch.I recall seeing film of a lap of proposed circuit which included a hump back bridge.

Thinking this over I believe the most serious attempt for this F-1 race was over the winter of '82/'83, to replace the short-lived Vegas event. I don't recall seeing any video, but a hump back bridge doesn't sound too much like Flushing and the reference is stirring some memories that Central Park got tossed into the mix at one point as a possible location. That would have made a wonderful and perfect setting for a championship race, but I don't think there was ever much seriousness to it -- although it may well have been used as the setting for some publicity shots for the idea.