"Right turn" at the speedway?

• Author: O'Leary, Mike
• Position: Indianapolis Motor Speedway - Cover Story

The United States Grand Prix comes to Indianapolis next year. Is the Formula One race, which will run clockwise, the "right turn" for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway?

The idea of holding a Formula One Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has been floating around for decades. To many, the notion was absurd. There were too many technical and logistical challenges. To others not long ago, it was pure heresy. A foreign race at the world's most hallowed oval? Wilbur Shaw would turn in his grave!

Yet, when Speedway President Tony George announced that the United States Grand Prix would be at the Brickyard beginning in 2000, there was little complaining about violating the sacredness of the Speedway. With the addition of the coveted Grand Prix of the United States, George sees the Speedway as the international leader in motorsports entertainment.

Red Ferraris have raced across the bricks at Indianapolis before. Bugattis, Maseratis and Mercedes, too, although it has been many years since these marques challenged the Speedway. Yet, for most of this century. Indianapolis has held an appeal to racers on other continents. European racing champions have competed here, and won, since the earliest events. Indy reached its greatest popularity with the foreign contingent nearly 40 years ago, when Grand Prix World Champion Jack Brabham raced Colin Chapman's historic rear-engined Cooper-Climax in the 1961 Indy 500.

This opened the door for other World Champions, including Jimmy Clark, Jackie Stewart, Graham Hill, Dennis Hulme, and, most recently, Emerson Fittipaldi and Nigel Mansel. George's quest for increased international status, bringing the entire Formula One assemblage to the Speedway, was simply the next step.

The Speedway has strategically positioned itself for the next century as it becomes the only facility in the world presenting auto racing with the magnitude of the Indy 500, the Brickyard 400 and now the Grand Prix of the United States, events showcasing the talents of three of the world's premier racing traditions.

Eddie Cheever, who won the Indy 500 last May and who has driven in more F-1 races than any other American, labels it "an interesting solution." "A lot of promoters of Formula One races in the States have done it for short periods of time and they were successful, or had windows of success." he notes. "But they didn't have a lot of history in promoting motor racing. That cannot be said about the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. They've had 83 years. The whole city is geared. Tickets for the 500 are passed on from family to family to family."

Can F-1 racing catch on at Indy as well as the Indianapolis 500 and the Brickyard 400 have? "I'm curious to see how the fans will take to it, but I think that it will be very successful," Cheever predicts. "Fans that go to the Speedway know that they are going to get the...