"WILKOMMEN, RACE FANS:
A GRAND PRIX TIME FOR INDIANAPOLIS"

Published, in edited form, in Indianapolis Monthly magazine, September, 2000 ©

[*Second-place, Magazine Sports Reporting, Best of Indiana SPJ Contest, April 2001*]

         Until 1994, it had been one simple, middle-class gathering at the corner of 16th and Georgetown each spring. White collar crowds, sleeves rolled up, set the social tone the last weekend of May for the world's biggest block party, well-stocked with burgers, hot dogs, coolers of beer and soft drinks, suntan lotion, all-American cheers for mostly homegrown heroes.

         Come '94 and another demographic group was added the first Saturday in August with the mother of all country racing fairs, loaded with fried chicken, six packs, mountain drawls and rebel whoops, wipe your fingers on your blue collars and T-shirts. And cheer for heroes with two first names and fenders on their race cars.

         Now the third stratum will be officially installed the last Sunday of September, as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway swings its gates open for its first-ever royal ball. Help yourself to the canapes, tea and wine coolers. Bring your continental accents and polite applause. White tie and tails, with cloth napkins draped over the proper sleeve, if you please.

         Hail the U.S. Grand Prix at Indianapolis, debuting Sept. 24, 2000, and, with it, a whole new demographic mix of fans and experiences, almost a new social order for the 89-year-old dowager monarch of auto racing who now claims the thrones of both the aristocracy and proletariat of motorsports-minded Americans.

         Think royal wedding, not block party or hayride. Lose the picnic baskets and plastic forks; break out the fine china and good silverware.

         "It's going to be a totally different thing," promises Eddie Cheever, who drove the international grand prix circuit for 11 seasons before coming home to America to drive Indy-cars 10 years ago. "I think it's going to be a great race and the people who come here will really enjoy it, but you've got to come with a different frame of mind."

         Different, indeed. While it won't look much different on the outside -- the fans in the stands should still be mostly the rolled-up-sleeves Americano types, with some F1-friendlier countrymen and a noticeable foreign contingent mixed in -- the Speedway may need to start its own finishing school for those curious Indianapolis 500 and Brickyard 400 fans who add the U.S. Grand Prix to their social calendars this fall, just so they won't think they've wandered into a Stanley Kubrick movie with their eyes wide shut. Otherwise, the sight of cars racing the opposite direction, bearing sponsors' decals in languages other than English, cutting through the infield after starting from a standing -- rather than flying -- start, engines reaching octaves not heard by human ears here before, racing past new architectural landmarks that are more retro-EuroDisney than shadowy reflections of early Brickyard heritage, and a winner guzzling imported champagne instead of cold milk from a farm down the road at the finish could be more than some pumped-up race fans' hearts can stand.

         Praise the Lord and pass the nitroglycerine tablets. That last cold Budweiser can wait until next May. And pity the poor Indy regular who runs into a true Formula One believer waving a Ferrari flag because he or she sees the Ferrari home base in Modena, Italy, as much as a shrine as a place where they turn out fine cars.

         The crowd will remain distinctly Indianapolis, no doubt, more commoner than crowned prince, but what it will be watching unfold will have as many regal touches as a changing of the royal guard at Buckingham Palace.

         Probably the grandest experiment yet by speedway president Tony George, the first Formula One race in the land of Pontiacs and potluck dinners in nine years will deal out its well-traveled game of high-horsepowered chemin de fer come September. And, as Cheever suggests, anyone not prepared to change his or her May-through-August mind-set and learn the rules of the newest game of chance in Naptown will certainly feel like a total stranger in a totally strange land.

         This definitely won't be your father's Oldsmobile 500 or Ford four-door 400, but, for those who have more than a passing acquaintance with the noblest class of racing comportment, it could be your limo ride to the royal ball. "It will be very different, but I think it will be a heck of a spectacle," says Roberto Guerrero, who spent two seasons driving grands prix before migrating to Indy-cars. "It is just something out of this world. Just hearing the engines will be unbelievable, and the whole circus will be quite amazing."

         Mario Andretti holds the same impression. And, as the only American ever to win both the Indianapolis 500 and a Formula One world championship, he should know if the upcoming culture clash can prove compatible. "Just the excitement of this event coming here, the fact that it's Indianapolis, the fact that it's going to be presented so well, I think it's going to have a big draw," he predicts.

         Chiming in with Andretti is still another former world champion and Indy 500 winner, Emerson Fittipaldi. "It will be a historic event, and I think it will bring Formula One back to America in a big way," says the retired Brazilian national treasure, who took a morning jog this May around the new 2.6-mile road course that now snakes through the speedway infield. "I'm sure the crowd will be excited to see Formula One again."

         The very fact that the grand prix culture is returning to the land that rejected royal authority with impunity in 1776 is revolutionary in itself. After failing to find a foothold on the American racing landscape, though tried at eight different venues, the high-tech, high-priced international series hasn't presented an event on U.S. soil since 1991. Whether the mecca of American oval-track racing can provide the proper ballroom for world-class road-racing is an open question, one even the optimistic Andretti isn't ready to say "final answer" to if some quiz show host forces the issue.

         "I've never seen it work before," cautions Andretti, who drove the new road course with speedway president Tony George in May. "I've seen really great road-course layouts in conjunction with an oval - take Daytona -- but it never seems to catch on. The ambience doesn't seem to really correlate, but, if it's going to happen, it's going to happen here. And I hope it does."

         The ambience, to say the least, will be as regal as an American event can be. Grand prix racing has royal bloodlines that run deep into its history, well beyond Prince Ranier handing out the trophies at the end of the Grand Prix of Monaco. Drivers in the earlier decades of grands prix have included a German count, an English baronet, a Spanish marquis, and a prince of Siam.

         America's equivalent to royalty, the sons and nephews of the richest of the rich, also have occasionally eschewed idle richness in favor of racing Formula One, like Lance Reventlow, whose parents were the world's richest woman, Barbara Hutton, and a Danish nobleman. Or Peter Revson, nephew of the ruler of the Revlon cosmetics empire.

         The drivers who sashay into the Indy speedway in September for the 15th of 17 Formula One races in 2000 may have somewhat humbler roots but still represent the nobility of world auto racing, and are paid accordingly, with top salaries in eight figures. The titles men like Michael Schumacher, Mika Hakkinen, and Jacques Villeneuve bring with them weren't handed down like castles and kingdoms but earned on winding race circuits around the world.

         And no one brings more aristocratic panache than the man who runs the whole Formula One gala, Bernie Ecclestone. Described recently in EuroBusiness magazine as "richer than the queen," Ecclestone has an estimated net worth of 2.4 billion British pounds, the most of any person in the United Kingdom, including the queen, which makes the Hulman-George family's $500 million fortune look like little more than loose change.

         Ecclestone made the Top 1 list in the UK last year; the speedway's controlling family slipped out of the Forbes 400 when the cutoff point rose to $700 million in '99. No question who gets the royalest treatment at the U.S. Grand Prix, the man who controls everything Formula One through his Formula One Holdings company and his vice presidency of the sanctioning body, the Federation Internationale de L'Automobile (FIA). He even brings his own modular structure to serve as his private office for the half-weeks of royal visitations around the world.

         The grand prix race cars, as well, present themselves with impressive aristocratic credentials, sleek, sophisticated missles that no price tag can be attached to, since each team - Ferrari, Williams, McLaren, and the rest - builds its own and sells them to no one. The engines in them are specially built for racing, designed to whir at 17,000 revolutions per minutes, which, by comparison, puts Indy-car and NASCAR engines on the same pace as a hamster perpetually churning on an exercise wheel.

         The sounds of the Formula One engines, well turned out by Ferrari, Mugen-Honda, Ilmor-Mercedes, and the other engine-makers for a princely $20 million a year per team, are truly incomparable. They scream where others bellows, shriek where others whimper; if NASCAR brings a baritone choir every August and the Indy-cars are the 33 tenors of May, then the high-revving, high-maintenance V-10s of September are going to serenade the 200,000-plus in attendance like a chorus of primo sopranos singing "We Are The World."

         Therein lies the biggest social adjustment for the 500 speedway's regular clientele, whose taste buds have become accustomed to wheel-to-wheel racing, or, in the case of NASCAR, fender-to-fender. Cutting-edge technology is the delicacy upon which Formula One feeds. "When you come to see a grand prix race, you're not going to see as much passing as you do at the Indianapolis 500," explains Cheever, who went to the 500's Victory Lane to collect its Maytime holy grail in 1998. "That's not what you're coming to see.

         "You're coming to see the greatest road racers in the world, and the cars. The level of technology is difficult to grasp even for me, and I did it for 11 years. When I see a Formula One car right now, to me it's an astounding feat that they can build these cars and create them and control them the way that they do. So, when you're coming to see them, you're coming to see Ferrari, you're coming to see Williams, you're coming to see McLaren, and you're coming to see Michael Schumacher, you're coming to see (McLaren driver) David Coulthard, you're coming to see the best the world has to offer in road racing."

         And, for the uninitiated, that means coming to see them go clockwise around the Indy track, the reverse of the normal protocol, once they have faced a start with no green flag and the tachometers reading zero before the red lights go out to open the starting gate, drivers racing against the track as much as against each other, doing half of that racing after turning right, not left, into the infield section of the grand prix course, and then the top three finishers mounting the victory podium to lift double-magnum bottles of Mumm Cordon Rouge champagne and wildly spraying each other with the contents in a strangely foreign ritual. Don't try this with your home-style milk, or Gatorade.

         And, when the podium ritual becomes more formal, the crowd will have to stand in place to nationalistic melodies not penned by Francis Scott Key for a change. The national anthem of the winning driver's home country will come first, followed by that of his team's nation of origin, unless they are the same. So, if, say, Mika Hakkinen triumphs with his black-and-silver McLaren, the musical order will be "Finlandia" followed by "God Save the Queen."

         The only chance U.S. fans will have to stand up for their own anthem will be before the race, since there has been no American presence on the grand prix scene since Michael Andretti's foray into its ranks in 1993, which proved dismal enough to get him voted off of the F1 isle and back to the colonies after only one season. The fast track has worked better in reverse, with fellows like Fittipaldi, Villeneuve, Jim Clark, and Graham Hill crossing the American borders to win the 500 and other Indy-style races.

         In fact, five of the last six 500s have been won by a Canadian headed for F1 (Villeneuve), an American reared in Europe and weaned on high-grade grand prix gasoline (Cheever), a Dutchman (Arie Luyendyk), a Swede (Kenny Brack), and a Colombian pre-destined for the F1 world (Juan Montoya). So, the usual Indy fans will need to pay attention in September, since some of the names they hear could return someday to do more damage to their jingoistic sentiments.

         Fortunately, they will not be left on their own to figure it out all Sept. 22-24. An influx of grand prix fans from all corners of the world, and from the right and left coasts of America, will be interspersed among the regular 16th Street crowd. Fred Nation, the speedway's chief spokesman, reports that 20-25,000 of the reserved-seat tickets for the U.S. Grand Prix have been purchased by buyers outside the States, and more orders have come from the East and West coasts of this country than would be the case for the Indianapolis 500 or the Brickyard 400.

         Still, according to Nation, the majority of ticket orders have come from the same areas that traditionally provide the audiences for speedway events -- Indiana and surrounding states. The leading countries for foreign orders have been the UK, Canada, and Germany, the speedway spokesman advises.

         The world-traveling F1 fans will get some help, too, in making sense of a land new to them, the principality of Middle America. The Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association has recruited volunteer interpreters to assist incoming strangers at the airport, the hotels, and at the track itself.

         "The thought is that, if people have medical emergencies or other types of (situations), they might be more comfortable talking in their own language, even though they might know some English," explains the speedway's Nation.

         In the end, that should add up to an assemblage of race fans with both foreign and domestic tendencies, a cocktail of Midwestern exuberance and continental reserve. But, as happens in Formula One around the globe, the U.S. Grand Prix at Indianapolis will probably produce a population with its own distinct personality, not as lavishly continental as at Monte Carlo, with its royal host and champagne and caviar parties, nor as festively carnival-like as in Brazil.

         The personality of the September social order could well end up resembling the Indy 500 bunch with slightly better brands of polo shirts and shorts, maybe a bit more interest in lap times than daring passes, and a few more wine coolers and a few less cans of Bud. And, unlike in May and August, their choices in race favorites will more often have to do with nationality not personality, German fans tending to favor the Schumachers or Frentzens, UK residents rallying behind Coulthard, Irvine, or Button, and national flags - the distinctive green-and-orange flag of Brazil, the French tri-color, the maple leaf-embellished Canadian flag, and so on - scattered throughout the multi-national throng like pins on a world map. And, of course, those from Italy - or others simply entranced by the maraschino-red machines produced in Modena - will bring their nearly religious devotion to Ferrari with them, along with huge red flags the size of Sardinia carrying the renowned prancing-horse logo on them.

         "Race fans are race fans, but I think F1 fans, especially Italian fans, are very special," observes Guerrero, the Colombian-born driver who has been runnerup at Indy twice in late May. "I think the rest of the Europeans are a little bit more reserved, but you do see the Italians especially going crazy with their Ferraris.

         "At the same time, when you see NASCAR fans, they're no less crazy than any of them."

         The foreign fringe to the usual Indy tapestry will be constrained a bit more than it is used to, since the speedway's restraining fences may keep the F1 old hands from pouring onto the track at its conclusion to congregate in front of the victory podium, although the young Italian men with the oversized Ferrari flags who are fixtures at most grand prix venues may still find a way around the catch-fences and yellow-shirted, whistle-blowing guards, especially if King Bernie decrees it so.

         When it comes to their taste buds, the foreign element will have to make the bigger adjustment. Except for a broader selection of coffees and possibly a few other items to appease more-continental appetites, the speedway's concession stands will mainly serve up Indy's main food groups - hot dogs, pizza, sno-cones, carbonated drinks.

         "The theory is that they're coming to the United States and one of the values of that is to experience race-track cuisine as we know it," Nation reports. "We wouldn't want to take that experience away from them."

         Still, the more grand prix-friendly part of the crowd should be able to return the favor to the poor American spectators who missed the finishing-school lessons. They can remind their American neighbors that, if it starts to rain, they should stay in their seats, because Formula One races press on, rain or shine, unlike Indy or Brickyard cars. They can also help with backgrounds and pronunciations as they look over a starting lineup that comprises four German drivers and another four from the UK, three from Brazil, two each from Italy, Finland, and Spain, and one apiece from the Netherlands, France, Argentina, Austria, and Quebec.

         Only the latter will ring any bell for the traditional Indy crowd. Villeneuve, son of a Formula One champion, raced in two Indy 500s, finishing second in '94 and winning in '95 before catching the next luxury liner to grand prix land. And only Villeneuve perhaps will side with those tradition-bound fans who like their races to go counter-clockwise and round and round the 2.5-mile oval.

         "It's great that we are going to Indy, but I'm just sad we are not going to be racing on the oval," the 1997 Formula One champion says, cheekily pressing the advantage of his previous experience at 16th and Georgetown. "I wish we could put the F1 on the oval. That would be great."

         But it won't happen. After two days of practice, qualifying, and some support races, come Sunday, the Formula One field undoubtedly will oblige Bernie Ecclestone and dutifully turn right into the infield, where blankets laden with picnic lunches and comatose over-indulgers have traditionally held their ground for decades. After weaving their way through the former breeding grounds of bikers and Snake Pit sub-classes, the grand prix cars will file back onto the Indy oval at the south end and streak toward the finish line in the direction that is the wrong way the rest of the year.

         The landscape the race will pass by will have changed as well. New polished-metal and tinted-glass monoliths in 21st century styles will be in place - a seven-story control tower that recalls, though vaguely, the old pre-modern pagoda of deep Speedway history, a five-story media center, modern pitside garages that suit the needs and whims of grand prix teams better than the Gasoline Alley garages that serve the more pedestrian Indy-car and stock-car crowds just fine. The makeover is an expensive one, estimated at $40 million, and not merely a bow to the extravagant tastes of the Formula One artistocracy. The new control tower and the media center were already on the drawing boards before the U.S. Grand Prix was inked into the speedway's schedule of events, notes spokesman Nation.

         But, even Nation admits, the grand prix has put its imprint on those two projects as well. "We did make some changes to the Pagoda plan," he reports. "For the Formula One race, we added a two-story section in front which holds timing and scoring and race control."

         The media center's plans grew larger with the prospect of an international press corps flocking to the 500 track like royal subjects to a coronation. "We had outgrown our former media center," Nation says. "Whether or not we would have built it this quick, I'm not sure, but we would have built a new one. As it is, we did build it large enough to handle the Formula One press corps, which is estimated to be about 500 international media and somewhere around 200 North American media."

         So, the formal dining table is set, the best sterling silver polished, and the seats all reserved. Only time will settle the lingering question of whether such royal trappings and personages will hold the interest of a population that once told King George III what he could do with his bloody taxes. The novelty of it all in the land that has lived without royal trappings for more than two centuries may turn into a tradition, or only a passing fascination with the pomp and circumstance of grand prix racing before returning many of the commoners back to their May-and-August social affairs to stay.

         The chinks in the Formula One armor in that regard that admittedly concern all involved are the diminished access to the participants, compared to those in the 500 and the 400, and the lack of lavish festivals, parades, and other ancillary events leading up to the U.S. Grand Prix itself. "It is certainly different than what people are used to with the Indianapolis 500," Nation is quick to admit. "With both the 500 and the 400, sponsors do a lot of things with drivers - personal appearances, autograph sessions - so there is that ability for fans to meet drivers, and, while the teams give every reason to believe that they want that kind of contact, we're not yet sure how that will be with the Formula One folks.

         "Even though they may not give that kind of contact in other venues, they are very, very interested in making sure the U.S. Grand Prix is a successful event, and they know the traditions here are different than they are in some other countries. We hope that, as the Formula One race returns over the years, it will develop some unique traditions of its own; we just don't know what those will be yet."

         Time will be the test, as it always is with events either new or traditional. Nation and other speedway officials think the rapid sell-out of reserved seats and affordable ticket prices - only 10 percent above regular Indy prices, which are at least half the costs of tickets at other grands prix - bode well for future Septembers.

         Whatever the ultimate outcome of the grand prix experiment at Indy, the first September crowning of a long-awaited king of a U.S. Grand Prix will probably leave the men- and women-in-waiting, both inside the track and outside, as awestruck as wide-eyed tourists at Windsor Castle. "You will see that the city of Indianapolis will be buried in attention, world-wide attention, for a week," predicts the multi-lingually loquacious Cheever. "They have no idea what's going to hit them, no idea whatsoever, and I think the attention will do a lot to the stature of the city. It will do a lot for what is kind of our holy ground here.

         "Now they will have everything there is to offer - the best of stock cars, the best of open-wheel oval, and the best of road races, all in one place."

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 Copyright 2000 by Jerry Miller ©

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