In defense of street course races:
Long Beach, St. Pete, Detroit, Chicago, Toronto, and, oh yeah, Monaco!
Sorry, Nashville, I’m not quite there yet… But I LOVE IndyCar street races!
If the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach is America’s Monaco that makes the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg the East Coast’s LBGP, except that it takes place on Florida’s WEST coast, this being the only contiguous state that has one of each. That conundrum aside this has been a year of terrific street course races, with a couple of new venues and one of the most ferocious contests I’ve seen, yesterday’s Honda Indy Toronto.
My affinity for races held around the inhospitable environment of city streets dates back to the September 1961 issue of Road & Track magazine, the one with Ritchie Ginther driving the shark-nose Ferrari at Monaco on the cover, reinforced a few years later by the opening sequence of Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix (storyboarded by legendary graphic designer Saul Bass who did the same for Hitchcock’s Psycho shower scene). Reading an early ‘70s Brock Yates Car and Driver interview with LBGP founder Chris Pook – conducted in a seedy Long Beach tavern – fired my imagination even more, especially knowing that Dan Gurney supported the effort.
One of the Peacock commentators claimed that no stop on the IndyCar calendar affords more close-up action for spectators than Toronto. Never having been there I can’t argue but St. Pete shines in that regard as well. My habit lately has been to drive ninety minutes from home early Friday morning to take advantage of the $65 three-day general admission pass, then decide whether to return on Saturday or Sunday. Usually I watch the race on TV, having soaked up plenty of atmosphere the previous day or two. Access is superb:
As is the sight of IndyCars blasting by twenty feet away.
Of course, having grown up in Boston I remain a city boy and really appreciate the amenities of downtown St. Pete, like great restaurants and parking garages half a block from the track. During the rest of the year the Dali museum (closed race weekend) houses the largest collection of the surrealist’s work outside of Barcelona and always delights. The town has great atmosphere, with the Vinoy and the yacht basin bookending the race track.
I liked that Toronto’s opening ceremonies included lovely renditions of both the American and Canadian national anthems, the latter in English and French. When my friends and I had season tickets to CART and NASCAR at Loudon, New Hampshire we’d meet the same Canadians seated near us every year, which was fun. New Hampshire International Speedway (as it was called then) played both anthems due to the large number of Canadians present and it always irked me that the Canadian Grand Prix organizers chose not to return the favor the years we attended F1 in Montreal.
As to the Peacock-only Toronto coverage, promoted as having limited commercial breaks, I found this to be truth-in-advertising: interruptions were few and far between and generally coincided with pauses in the action. Most of the commercials were actually promos for other NBC content and/or IndyCar itself and lasted less than three minutes; I stopped keeping track when I realized I wasn’t being annoyed by them but I still miss the side-by-side video that the network broadcasts use during breaks. Interestingly, at least one commercial was in Spanish for a Telemudo women’s soccer event.
Hinch and T-Bell are a great pairing, especially during practice and qualifying where they go into nuanced detail about car setup, racecraft and strategy. I’ve even found Leigh Diffey to be far less annoying lately, ever since someone explained object of the preposition to him but I still miss Paul Tracy – The Thrill from West Hill – especially at Toronto!
What a dominating performance by Christian Lundgaard, becoming the third driver to win his first CART/IndyCar race at Montreal, after Adrián Fernández and the late Justin Wilson! Alex Palou and Colton Herta also impressed, finishing second and third after starting 15th and 14th, respectively. It was great seeing footage of Bobby Rahal’s 1986 win, the first at this Canadian circuit. Speaking of historical footage, here’s in-car video comparing Long Beach in 1978 and 2022. Having attended two Long Beach races I’m quite aware of the changes to that circuit over the years and I’m sure the same is true of Toronto but the Princes' Gates remain, albeit with a high-rise building as a backdrop now.
Marshall Pruett’s column on Rahal Letterman Lannigan’s renaissance is a good read, as always. MP may not smell as good as Townsend but he’s a lot friendlier, for what it’s worth… not that Marshall smells bad, mind you!
Here are a few more photographs I snapped using that $65 GA pass at St. Pete this year as the cars passed through tech inspection. A wistful thought occurred to me then: how many more times will we see the red and black #14 AJ Foyt Racing IndyCar on track? Many, I hope!
This week’s musical suggestion:
Agree; that was a ferocious contest on Sunday. One of the more entertaining races I have watched of late with guys going toe to toe, but respectfully!