Belle Isle

Labor Day weekend is often a bittersweet rite of passage for many people, signaling the end of summer and the return to a more hectic pace of life, whether at work, school or home. In Motor City, the hectic pace descended a few days earlier, as three different racing series arrived for the Detroit Indy Grand Prix presented by Firestone—a weekend blowout of competition, celebrated on Belle Isle, Detroit’s playground in the river.

Participants in the IndyCar series—the unification of last year’s CART and IRL open wheel series—were being joined by folks from IMSA’s American LeMans endurance series and SCCA’s SPEED World Challenge GT Championship series. For any racing enthusiast, this represents the sirloin of North American competition on four wheels. When the opportunity was offered by Bridgestone-Firestone North America to sit in on the festivities, there was no struggle in formulating an answer.

There has been some fallout as a result of the reunification of the two open wheel racing series in North America. Some of the more interesting people—drivers Paul Tracy and Robert Doornbos, as well as Minardi Team USA principal Paul Stoddard—to name a few, are missing from the ranks this year. If for no other reason, it would be interesting to see how the new series has developed, because the predecessors each had their own flavor. Continue reading…

ON THE ISLAND

Downtown Detroit is no stranger to fast cars and open wheel racing. The Formula One United States Grand Prix ran on a downtown street course from 1982 through 1988. In 1989, the CART series took over and competed on the street circuit for three years, before moving to the course on Belle Isle. Yearly CART events continued there from 1992 through 2001. Racing returned to Bell Isle in 2007, organized and promoted by a subsidiary of the Downtown Detroit Partnership, under the leadership of Chairman Roger Penske.  A special charitable organization was established that enables all net proceeds raised by the Grand Prix to continue to fund measures to preserve and improve Belle Isle. The 600-acre island has a long history, dating back to the late 19th century. Some of the more notable structures there are the Aquarium and Horticulture Building, inspired by the Naples aquarium, and the Belle Isle Casino, designed by Albert Kahn in 1908 – once said to be the finest casino in the United States.

The 14-turn, 2.07-mile road course is a permanent configuration on the island roads, with barriers and grandstands erected for the event. Belle Isle is open to the public at other times. The conversion to a race track involves the installation of about two thousand concrete barriers, 27 miles of safety cable, 30 thousand tires for temporary barrier walls, 50 thousand feet of temporary fence and grandstands to seat 30 thousand people. More than a thousand volunteers help to smooth the way on race weekend.

START YOUR ENGINES

Competition began in earnest on Saturday, with the running of the Detroit Sports Car Challenge presented by Bosch, for the American LeMans series. The 2 ¾-hour race brings four different classes of car into the fray, with interesting and sometimes unpredictable results. The LeMans prototype cars are dedicated race cars from their very beginning and involve factory efforts from the likes of Audi, Porsche and Acura. The two GT classes bring converted road cars onto the circuit, with almost anything from Audi, Ferrari, Porsche, Aston Martin, Ford, GM and other makers being fair game.

A bout of Saturday morning fog delayed the schedule slightly, but had no effect on the race itself. Sunday arrived bright, sunny and cloudless, with temperatures climbing into the 80’s in the afternoon, relatively low humidity and a slight breeze.

Continue reading at UberDrive Magazine.