VROOM O 6 6 n December 12, 1959, at the United States Grand Prix in Sebring, Florida, New Zealander Bruce McLaren darted across the finish line in his Cooper T51, less than a second ahead of Frenchman Maurice Trintignant. It was the 22-year-old McLaren’s first Formula One victory in a storied career as a driver and racing innovator. McLaren’s teammate Jack Brabham had a slightly rougher last lap. Archived footage shows him running out of gas and then pushing his car across the line in fourth place at Sebring, the final race of the Formula One season. Brabham held on to his narrow points lead in the F1 standings and locked up the Formula One Drivers’ Championship in spite of the mishap. The messy finish marked the last time a Formula One lap would be run in the Sunshine State for more than 60 years. After mass-media conglomerate Liberty Media acquired For- mula One (now better known as Formula 1 or F1) in 2016, a cam- paign to bring F1 competition back to Florida made headway. Formula 1 set about working with Miami Dolphins owner Ste- phen Ross to find a long-term home for races in the Miami area. The effort was not without controversy, as many Miamians opposed Formula 1’s return, citing concerns over excessive noise and pollution. Three years of negotiations, political wran- gling and litigation ensued; meanwhile, claims of ethics breaches were lobbed against then-County Mayor Carlos A. Gi- ménez in connection with his vetoes of commission votes linked to Formula 1. Giménez, now a U.S. Congressman, denied any wrongdoing and said his actions were cleared by county ethics staff. Formula 1 ultimately inked a ten-year deal under which it will hold annual championship races in Miami Gardens and provide the northwest Miami-Dade municipality with $5 million in com- munity benefits. The inaugural Miami Grand Prix race will be run on Sunday, May 8, at Hard Rock Stadium, where the grounds have been converted into a racing complex lined with high- priced club seating, a makeshift yacht marina, and a pool area complete with two stories of cabanas. In step with Miami’s re- cent push to attract cryptocurrency-linked investment, the title sponsor is Crypto.com. The track has three straightaways and 19 corners, with early estimates of top speeds approaching 200 mph. Formula 1 is tout- ing its hand in the course design, describing the circuit as a “dy- namic and free flowing track.” (A planned section of the track that extended onto public streets outside the stadium was nixed in hopes of quelling outcry from Miami Gardens residents.) A HISTORY OF GRAND PRIX AUTO RACING IN FLORIDA, FROM THE PIONEERING DAYS OF CARL FISHER TO THE PRESENT. MEMORY LANE Miami’s open-wheel racing history dates back nearly a hundred years, to the construction of the Fulford Miami Speedway by real estate developer and racing enthusiast Carl Fisher. Completed amid the 1920s South Florida real estate boom, the wood track played host to a 300-mile race in February 1926 that attracted as many as 20,000 people. Fisher, who had helped develop an early incarnation of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, believed the Ful- ford track would make Miami a global auto-racing hub. According to historian Paul George, “Anything went in that era.” “It was nothing but a Miami of spectacle — to bring tourists, to bring investors in this inflated real estate scene. In the ‘20s, it was crazy. Miami, Greater Miami, was already an outstanding tourist destination that offered all kinds of events — horse racing, dog racing, football games,” George elaborates. The Great Miami Hurricane of September 1926 wiped out the track, along with countless other South Florida developments. The storm was one of the final blows to the local real estate bub- ble, which had been teetering on the brink owing to a railroad supply-chain crisis. “In some ways, [the 1926 race] was in the area of that last gasp. That boom was beginning to decline and buyers were beginning to back away,” George notes. “And one of the mindsets was, ‘We need to continue to provide spectacles to bring people down here for reasons of tourism and investment.” In the modern age of racing, Miami’s open-wheel scene has thrived intermittently. Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) series races were held on a road course at Tamiami Park in the mid 1980s, at Bicentennial Park in 1995, and in Bayfront Park between 2002 and 2003. Homestead Miami Speedway pro- vided a home for CART and IndyCar events for 15 years after opening in 1995. COMMUNITY OUTCRY By the time Liberty Media closed its roughly $4.6 billion acqui- sition of Formula 1 in 2016, a planned expansion of F1 events in the United States was well under way. Prior to the acquisition, longtime F1 chief executive Bernie Ec- clestone had been publicly discussing negotiations to schedule a race in Las Vegas. And Formula 1 had long been looking to expand on a successful run of races in Austin, Texas, the site of its only stateside event at the time. The marketing strategy for F1 races in the United States was tried and true: Convert the already large base of American auto- racing fans to F1 devotees while promoting F1 races with concerts and off-track entertainment in order to draw in outsiders. >>p8 VROOM BY IZZY KAPNICK MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 MAY 5-11, 2022 NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | MIAMI NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | ART | STAGE | NIGHT+DAY | METRO | RIPTIDE | LETTERS | CONTENTS |miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com miaminewtimes.com
