F1 governing body leery of plan for track in Austin (Houston: to buy, live)

[orbius]

FIA leery of plan for F1 track in Austin - Austin Business Journal

This is a problem sounds like theres a huge split in F1 between Bernie Ecclestone and the entire FIA, F1's governing body. Tavo it sounds like isnt providing the details of where the funding for the track would come from which is odd.

Hopefully we end up with the F1 race in Austin but for now the whole thing sounds like its in some doubt.

[centralaustinite]

I will not shed a tear if it passes up by.

[SickOfCalifornia]

F1 is for girls. It's all about NASCAR in Texas. :-)

[atxcio]

With no actual location announced, investors not identified, and no design presented -- it's hard to get your hopes up about this.

Right now, the most promising evidence that it's really going to happen is the revelation that the TX government has been involved for a couple of years... that, and the fact that the state is trying to keep from having to release records regarding these negotiations (which should be subject to the open records act), indicate there is some actual serious money involved somewhere . If it wasn't for that, I'd say zero chance this is happening. But because of the "smoke", I give it at least a 50% chance.

Oh well, it kinda came out of the blue anyway.

[orbius]

Hopefully Tavo is not relying on funny money to fund the track and thats why he is so evasive on naming the sources of the money. Whole thing is starting to smell a bit fishy unfortunately.

[verybadgnome]

I'm a bit surprised that the FIA president didn't know what was going on.

I think it may be delayed by one year to give enough time to complete the track and associated facilities. They ran the race on the streets of Dallas in '84, but I'm not sure they could do that here to buy time.

[jobert]

That would be pretty nice if they ran the race in downtown Austin for the first year or two. That would be manageable, and maybe take a month of setup. I would like to see the permanent track built in Austin, but I could do without the intrigue that F1 is known for. I've found it kind of irritating thusfar, and it's not even two months after the announcement.

[SickOfCalifornia]

I lived in San Jose when they ran champ cars downtown. It was a major expense and disruption to the city. The last thing Austin needs is to spend millions to make 6th street safe for a single race. You should read up on what that city had to go through. Furthermore F1 doesn't even run in the US. They might be able to attract them with a shiny new course but they'll never run in downtown Austin. Ever.

[jobert]

Originally Posted by SickOfCalifornia

I lived in San Jose when they ran champ cars downtown. It was a major expense and disruption to the city. The last thing Austin needs is to spend millions to make 6th street safe for a single race. You should read up on what that city had to go through. Furthermore F1 doesn't even run in the US. They might be able to attract them with a shiny new course but they'll never run in downtown Austin. Ever.

They've run these races in downtown Houston, and Dallas..


don't be such a downer.

[HappyTexan]

With them not coming forward about funding..I'm worried they will want taxpayer money to be ponied up to fund this sucker. A NASCAR track would bring in more money over the long run than an annual elitist race.