Circuit of the Americas Development Updates
 

[QUOTE]After a three-year hiatus, Formula One is coming back to the states in 2012 and the city that's been chosen to host the World Cup of Motorsports? Austin, Texas. Yes, Austin.

According to the release from F1, the race will be held in the city from 2012 to 2021, and since Austin doesn't have a race track, a facility will be purpose-built to host the events. Get all the details in the press release after the jump.

[Source: Formula One | Image: Corbis/Getty]/QUOTE]
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/05/25/breaking-formula-one-coming-to-austin-texas-in-2012/

Very cool! Just read the story in the Statesman a few moments ago...I was wondering where the other F1 racing locations were in the US... guess that answers my question. Puts us in rather select company! Where would they race? Purpose-built facility or on existing roads?

EDIT: Your article notes a purpose-built facility. Wonder where?

Statesman Article

... regarding location, it would seem most logical to place along or near the 130 corridor, given available land, proximity to air and ground (highway, out-of-town) transportation, etc. Of course, the eastern fringes of Austin hardly resemble the Hill Country, as the press releases tout :)

Wow, this is incredible!!! HUGE!!! Hopefully NASCAR will run an event here too.
Now we truly need more Hotel rooms. First I heard of this. Mayor and Gov kept this quiet for a while. Wherever they put the track, it will need to be directly off I35 or 130. These are usually up to week long events which includes promotions, qualifying and the actual race. The track could also be used by tire companies for testing their tires, road rallies, 24 hour races, car companies test driving their vehicles, motorcycle racing and more. OK I'm dreaming, but this is a huge big league victory for Austin.

This is HUGE. I'm so excited.

This can't be valid...wish it was...this is the most prestigious sport in the world....ton's of $$$$$...It would make Austin a world destination...
Here's the problem. F-1 flys their cars and support equipment in modified Boeing 747's,...ABIA can't handle 747's..

With a runway nearly 12,000' long, they have more than enough pavement to handle a 747 landing or, more relevantly, taking off.

Now, I'm unaware of any gates configured to "handle" a 747 on a jetbridge, but they wouldn't need those anyway.

The airport is a non-issue. Mueller certainly would've been.

Is this a typical configuration of a Formula-1 track?

http://www.autodromodoalgarve.com/index

http://www.monchiqueportugal.info/images/circuit2.jpg

http://www.monchiqueportugal.info/New_F1_Race_Track.html
http://www.autodromodoalgarve.com/index

http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2010/5/10824.html

Its official. this is HUGE... much bigger than a super bowl event. this is like holding the olympics in austin

Time to start building hotels... lots of em.

Regarding the airport... that's funny. For a while ABIA had the longest runway in TX and was an alternate land site for the shuttle. Remember it was a military base first... Any plane can take off and land with ease on the west runway. 13K feet long. It was 14K feet long when the military ran it. DFW's strips were 10K feet but about 10 years ago they extended almost all of them to 12K feet. Jet bridgets are on hydrolics... they can adapt to 747s etc no problemo.

I watched a 747 with the space shuttle strapped to its back land on ABIA's longest runway (when it was Berstrom AFB). Not sure why you don't think they can handle 747's with a few open wheeled vehicles and equipment.
They can handle the unloading at the cargo area using fork trucks.

I hope this means add ons to ABIA. :yes:

Algarve hasn't held an F1 race, but it is a similar facility. Bahrain, Circuit Losail in Qatar, Shanghai International Circuit are ones built in recent years, Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi was opened up last year.

Hopefully it comes through, then I won't have to travel too far to. We went to Indy in 2007 and had been looking at going to a race next year somewhere.

This is exactly what I have been wanting to come here for years. That is just awesome! Huge win for Austin! Now it just better happen.

when I read about this yesterday I literally couldn't stop laughing. Having composed myself, here's what I have to say about this, ladies: there is zero chance that this will happen; no one will spend $250 million plus on this because - think about it - no one can. And for those of you who've lived in Europe or are otherwise familiar with F1, you know about Bernie Ecclestone and I don't need to say anything about him. Anyway, that 60 room tower over the Robertsons' old building on Congress has a better chance of happening than an F1 track (and that's saying something).

Here's the problem with your statement. One, Formula 1 would not be announcing this in the first place if they didn't intend to do it. They signed a contract with the city of Austin. Two, This has been in the works for awhile now albiet secretive. I got off the phone just this morning with a friend in San Jose, who has connections with people who have known about this deal for months and he knew this announcenment was comming even though he didn't bother to tell me ealier which I chewed him out for it lol. Three..., im not sure where your getting that $250 million from because they havn't stated the ammount that this would cost. The $250 million is the ammount of money that will be pumped into the Austin economy because of this event. You remind me of all those who said the Austonian would never be built lol.

This is earth shattering news for the city of Austin. Not only will we be hosting a true international event, but there will be thousands of new jobs that will be created here because of Formula 1. Not just the event itself, but the residual affect. Hotels will be sprining up downtown like weeds (hopefully tall ones), not to mention other parts of the city. The track will be used year around as well, not just for this one event. Companies that are researching alternative fuels will set up shop here to use the track for testing. This is as big as they come for any city and this will propel our city like a slingshot over the next several years. You think our population was going to grow before, now with this announcment you can bank on a pretty big population growth spurt that most likely would have never happend if this event never came here.

I know some of you hate roads, but with all of this "world-class growth," what can be done to improve Austin's infrastructure to handle the growth ?

From San Marcos, I've found that it often takes as long to travel 25 miles north to Austin as it does to travel 50 miles south to San Antonio.
San Antonio is also a large, fast-growing city, but somehow I never see the traffic jammed up like I do so often on Austin's stretch of I-35.

What is I-35 going to be like when you host world-class events like Formula One ?

It may, the State of Texas is providing 25,000,000 a year to host the event in Austin for a ten-year run. If the event happens, we - Texas - are open to providing more dinero.

The Statesman article provided that building the track could cost $250 million. Because many other things necessary for this event would cost many additional millions of dollars, I stated that this would cost more than $250 million.

I suppose it's possible that the event would, as you say, pump $250 million into the local economy. That would be wonderful, if true. The problem would be in raising that much start up capital during perhaps the worst year for private and public finance in the history of private and public finance.

Everyone is broke. Which leads me to my next post . . .

The state is having to make staggering budgetary decisions on things like education, health care, and infrastructure because it is running a 10 digit deficit. Therefore, you can be certain that legislators will give Austin $25 million every year to help a sport that most of them, when they learn of its existence, will find vaguely Belgian. This will happen, of course, the instant a Laredo parking lot freezes-over in July.

25 million is really NOT that much money. To put this in perspective: The direct connectors at the 183 and 290 interchange are costing around 107 million.

I wonder if they might put it on the site of the abandoned Villa Muse project? The whole Villa Muse project was supposed to be 681 acres 15 minutes east of downtown and 15 minutes northeast of the airport.

Congrats to Austin.

Too bad Fort Worth already has two NASCAR and one Izod Indy Car racing events, because that just leaves one Formula 1 event per year.
NASCAR isn't expanding anymore, there's already new oval tracks waiting inline for a new Nascar event. it's possible Izod Indy Car may provide a second event for the Austin track to strengthen its appeal in Texas. I'm not so sure F1 would allow that.

There are road courses all over America available for testing new technologies already, a new one really isn't needed.

I'm curious as to how this will be financed and built so quickly in an era where virtually no large projects can obtain financing. If/when construction starts there needs to be flood of financing made available to hotel developers.

For a track to be ready for the 2012 season wouldn't ground have to be broken almost immediately...The track would be the easy part...pit garages, grandstands, media centers, parking, the list is endless..that's a LOT of structures to build ...I hope this happens but I can't see how it can be done in two years. The Austonian took nearly two years and it is miniscule compared the the vastness of a race track.

Financing is available, but only to the projects most likely to give a good return. I don't know where the track itself will get funding, but you can be sure that financiers and lenders will see this event as literally an insurance policy. In fact, this event is so large that many projects in similar markets (Charlotte, Raleigh, etc.) that were seen as likely to get financing could now not get financing due to an absorption effect into the Austin market of what limited funds that there are at the moment.

This is the biggest thing to ever happen for Austin apart from two things: The government (which is also responsible for UT) and Dell.

ha ha ha ha

I went to San Antonio a few times this month, I-35 around Selma/Schertz is just as bad and 410 gets bad. The people complain about Austin traffic I guess have never been stuck in traffic in Dallas or Houston.

There is only one FIA sanctioned track in the US, Indy. Nascar ovals are overbuilt as the wait for race dates shows. There is a shortage of tracks that can hold these type of events in this part of the country as most of the tracks are country club style tracks or older tracks, neither were designed to handle these type of events. Road courses can handle all sorts of events and for the track to be profitable they would have to have other high profile events along with a bunch of regional events.

A FIA sanctioned track where F1 race could become the premiere facility in the country and attract the events that don't come to this part of the country because the proper facilities don't exist. I could see an ALMS race signing on quickly, they have nothing between Miller (Salt Lake City) and Barber (Birmingham, Alabama) since the Houston event folded due to the IRL/Champ Car merger, it was a crappy parking lot race anyway. World Superbike has hinted at wanting a second race in the US, MotoGP is another possibility.

I have heard there are large foreign investors behind this proposal, which if true is better than trying to get a financial company to invest in something like this. As far as the time frame many of the recent tracks have been built in about 18 months. Much of what is done is the track and necessary facilities are built and more amenities are built after the first race.

I consider myself hopeful that it will come through, I consider myself "cautiously optimistic" that it will.

No, I-35 is way more annoying than anything I've driven on in Houston. Just my two cents.

Everything is Austin is way more annoying than anything I've driven in Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio.

http://www.statesman.com/news/local/track-site-engineers-secured-f1-group-says-711472.html

Track Site & Engineers secured

I agree that those who whine about Austin traffic need to spend some time inching south on 610 West between I-10 and the US 59 split. Painful.

I really don't see this happening. Perhaps its a play, a bluff to shake some incentives out of a New York or California facility.

This is not a play and the fact is they are farther ahead than the public knows about. They already have the land, they had it before the announcment was made, they just don't want the public to know exactly where it is just yet. They have big investors from what I hear and yes there is some international investors, this is not some pipe dream that people are throwing around. I can understand people's reluctance to really accept something this huge to happen here when honestly I never thought anything like this would happen in Austin. But all in all this project is very well off and has been in the works for awhile. They don't just announce something like this out of the spur of the moment with no investors or land and just say Hey Formula 1 is comming!!!! Im sure we will hear about the construction start of the track fairly soon.

wasnt there suppose to be a track being built just east of the airport. never heard about a race being held on it but it was suppose to be a road course

I35 just south of New Braunfels to 1604 is brutal.

If this is built it will be good for Austin, but I would not expect too much from it. The 250 million a year impact is inflated. The impact will likely be just north of 100 million, closer to what Indianapolis experienced. Nevertheless, it will still be good for the region.

That's merely subjective. I've seen no other freeway in Texas with the kind of all-day congestion as on I-35 in central Austin. The worst of Dallas and Houston might compare, but not San Antonio.

The stretch of freeway you reference in SA has 139,000 vehicles per day on six lanes. The stretch of I-35 in Austin that I'm referencing has 227,000 vehicles per day on six lanes. I'm guessing you're not on I-35 in Austin much.

Wish I owned the concrete company that will get or has that contract.

The problem with I-35 is everyone and their dog uses it. And it's used by many more people than just Austinites. I-35 is the main north/south route in the US for transportation. People like to blame Austin for the traffic on it, but really the problem is much greater than just city traffic. Most of our other major highways are no where near as bad. Mopac can be a pain sometimes, but really I don't think anything comes close to I-35.

Loop 610 in Houston can be pretty bad. We've been stuck there more than a handful of times. And I-35 through Dallas can be bad. San Antonio though has pretty good flow, but there have been times when I-35 has been at a crawl there too.

The thing is, that's just the nature of highways.

I hate Austin traffic!

Formula 1
 

The eastside is the only part of town that could handle dispersing traffice after an event like that. The traffic issues is horrible on the west side, thanks to all the westside nimby's shooting down any improvements to the roads out there. No one wants SH45 out there because they don't want the increased traffic it could bring to their neighborhoods.
The Eastside makes more sense.

Nope, I live here in South Austin in between I-35 and Mopac, I take Mopac about 90% of the time. I avoid it like the plague. My wife works right off I-35 between 290/183 and when I have had to pick her up from work it doesn't seem as bad as I have seen in the past. What I was really saying is that interstate traffic is pretty much bad in the major cities anywhere, San Antonio is not immune or some tremendous oasis of no traffic issues. If someone thinks Austin is the "worst in the world" then they must not have seen much of the world or driven in those places with major traffic issues. Most people think "traffic is bad" when they can't set the cruise 60 mph on an interstate highway.

I commuted to Dallas for four months in 2005, leaving at 6:00 am on Monday mornings I would say a good 80% of the traffic on I-35 was semi-truck traffic, bumper to bumper all the way to the I-35 split near Hillsboro. Most of those were probably out of San Antonio or points further south, I was getting on at William Cannon so I was having to head through town every morning.

It does sound promising when you read about their ability to fund this. Also, this article mentions that they never approached any wealthy car enthusiasts in Texas. Now that those people know about the planned track, they say they'd like the chance to help pay for it.

http://www.statesman.com/sports/pro/f1-austin-announcement-a-big-surprise-to-many-718374.html

http://www.statesman.com/news/texas-poli...ld-foot-1st-formula-one-bill-721621.html

Man, check out the grand stands and, is that a hotel in the 2nd pic?

http://www.statesman.com/news/local/form...?srcTrk=RTR_661354&viewAsSinglePage=true

Most of the Tilke tracks are kind of boring, Instanbul (where the last F1 race was held) is one of the better tracks, especially the 5 apex "neck stretcher" turn. I don't know whether it is his track designs or the terrain that makes them less interesting than the older, traditional tracks like Spa Francorchamps. Most of them have been done in locations without much terrain, like the deserts of the Middle East, Shanghai or Maylaysia. It will be interesting to see what he comes up with.

Honestly, it's hard for us Americans to understand what a "boring" or "interesting" track is. We just know ovals. Beyond that we wonder about the grandstands and box suites, RV sites, parking, etc.

Sad, I know.

It appears that Bernie's true motive has been revealed...The Austin GP announcement was really a ploy to get the New York area to up its bid for the Grand Prix....Even thought Austin would be the "real USGP" the New York race would quickly overshadow Austin's race....The clout of New York and its hugh population, media, and international access has ended this dream for Austin....Too bad...It would have changed this city more than anything since the early tech immigration of the 60's and 70's...Austin never had a chance...The guy is a snake and that's an insult to the snake community.

I always knew it was probably to good to be true. Just like the white water waller creek. It would have been something new that no other downtown had but no. They go for the lame river walk that every other city these days are makeing. TStacy's Tower, Villa muse, Lady B lake Boardwalk, Museum tower, Green being finished by 2014 , H.E.B. downtown, Childrens Museum at the W, a real commuter rail and much much more. It just makes me sad, and none of these things usually say that its not going to happen they downgrade it into something that doesn't even matter or just plain out don't say anything at all or even worse say it will happen in the next four years and then they say next four years just like the overpasses at I35 and Benwhit/ 71 Its always going to be but isn't.:hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell: :hell:

It's okay let New York or some other state have it, we still got alot of great things to be proud for, Austin needs a major attraction something different like an indoor ski area or a small disney theme park not sure if that would go well with Earthquest and six flags close to each other but its a start :)