Formula 1 is leaving Europe. You can bet the farm on that. Bernie is increasingly looking to the Far East and to North America. The biggest reason being the fact that these are the biggest untapped markets in F1. Europe has just about been exhausted when it comes to exposure. It really can’t grow any bigger in Europe than it already has. The big 800 pound fish in he room is the market of America. It is by far the biggest untapped market in F1. To be fair, it’s not surprising that F1 hasn’t captured the imagination of Americans. We already have the 4 major sports in MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL. Beyond that, we also have NASCAR and CCWS. IRL isn’t a sport. They’re crapwagons and that’s all I’ll say. Returning to the point, there’s enough to options out there already to sufficiently suck up most Americas time, energy, (and most importantly) money.
In light of that, I’d still advise Bernie to at least make a halfway decent effort to make sure not only that F1 stays at Indy, but also have an additional race on the West Coast. Europe covers an area of about 10.4M sq. km. and has 9 races. The U.S. covers an area of about 9.6M sq. km. (and that includes AK and HI) and has exactly 1 race. F1 has been to the West Coast before. Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s they used to run on the streets of downtown Long Beach, CA. They subsequently ran in Phoenix in the late 80’s and early 90’s and that turned out to be a total disaster. Now I know that Long Beach is currently occupied by the CCWS, but the idea of F1 cars running down Shoreline Dr. just makes me think how awesome it could be. I’d like it if they included Ocean Blvd. like they used to, but that is now a main artery into downtown Long Beach, and its subsequent shut down would not be easy to obtain. In today’s world, a race at Long Beach is a long shot, at best.
The second, albeit more reasonable option is head up to good old Laguna Seca. It is a great track and who be able to hold an F1 race, it does have a big downfall in that it isn’t really near any big cities. San Jose is the closest big city with an airport. In fact, its over 74 miles from the airport in San Jose to Laguna Seca. Overlooking that, Laguna Seca is a great place to hold the race. The Corkscrew alone is reason enough to hold the race. I’d love to see someone try to pull a Zanardi and make it stick. It is a short track by F1 standards, but so is Interlagos, Monaco, Indianapolis, and so was the A1-Ring. It’s also be nice if Bernie actually tried to market the race to the American public, not just a few commercials on Speed Channel every once in awhile. Second, put the Speed Channel crew on Fox AND broadcast it in HD. Advertising on Fox would bring in viewers and sponsors. If it’s run right, it can work. ABC nearly killed the race at Indy with Bob Jenkins. Sauber became Sawber and F1 became so dumbed down Mike Tyson was annoyed.
Now I know this is unlikely to see F1 at Laguna Seca. But the U.S. needs a second race and it needs to be on the West Coast. We already get shanked by the rest of the country in many things. It’d be nice to have the second race be more than 10 miles west of the Mississippi. More exposure in America is always a good thing, and I hope it leads to a greater fanbase in America. It’ll lead to fattening the lines of Bernie’s wallet, but at this rate, he’ll be dead by the time that happens. O well. Make it happen anyway Bernie. Do it for (your) kids.
[...] Is there room for a second F1 race in the US? The F1-Blog guys seem to think so, making the case for a race at Laguna Seca and some suggestions for Bernie on how to market it. I agree that there is room for more races in North America – a quarter of a century ago we had three out of the championship’s sixteen races in the US – Long Beach, Detroit and Las Vegas. Now that the season has been extended more US races can only be a benefit, to the teams, sponsors and the circus itself. [...]
Totally agree with having more races in the US especially at Laguna Seca, would be a great race to watch. The US has many great tracks so would make sense to use them.