Lap One Done With the Support of Our Fans!

We are excited to celebrate with you the one year anniversary of the announcement of Austin, Texas as the future home of Formula One™ in the United States starting in 2012. It was also one year ago today that we founded The Austin Grand Prix and embarked upon our mission to bring the most comprehensive news surrounding this announcement to fans around the world. Our mission was simple: “To bridge the gap between racing fans and Austin and welcome everyone to the future home of Formula One™.”

We are extremely grateful for the support of our fans from Austin to Australia and everywhere in between; whether you’ve connected with us via our dedicated website, Facebook page, Twitter account, Vimeo video page, or met us out and about in the streets of Austin at a watch party, networking event, movie premiere, press conference or any other exciting event. Thank YOU for supporting our efforts to be the new media and community resource for the Circuit of the Americas™ under construction in Austin, Texas as the future home of Formula One™ and MotoGP racing, starting in 2012.

On location at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, TX

What's Next?

• 3 June 2011: The FIA World Motor Sport Council will meet and discuss rescheduling of the cancelled Bahrain GP and preliminary talks of a 2012 race calendar.

• November 2011: Expected announcement of finalized 2012 race calendar.

• June 2012: When COTA has been told to “be ready” for an inaugural race. Also, a June race date would make logical sense, if the track was ready by this time, because the cars should already be on the North American continent, coinciding with the Canadian Grand Prix.

• September/October 2012: Another logical date for the USGP because the cars are shipped through Dallas, Texas (about a 3 hour drive from Austin) on their way to Brazil in South America for the Brazilian GP. Also, back in April, the University of Texas said their Longhorns Football Team would consider moving a football game to accommodate a race weekend in Austin - which would be unprecedented!

Headed to Montreal!

We are also excited to be packing our bags for Montreal in two weeks for the Canadian Grand Prix from 9-13 June. We hope to meet as many F1 fans as possible and have created a casual meet up in Montreal, which you can RSVP for on our Facebook page and stay tuned for more information.

"SENNA" Wins The Hearts Of Austin

It is hard to believe that it was just two months ago that we had the great Kerri and Kevin with SENNA Director Asif Kapadia at SXSWhonor of working alongside Director Asif Kapadia and Working Title Films to help promote and welcome the Texas premiere of the SENNA film during Austin’s famed South By Southwest Film Festival. Thank you for helping sell out both screenings of the film at the iconic Paramount Theatre on Congress Avenue. If you were able to attend a screening, we hope you enjoyed the film as much as we did! If not, check out this exclusive video interview of Asif at the Social Media Clubhouse. Please also continue to support SENNA for next week’s UK release (3 June) and a broader US statewide release planned for 12 August. We want to continue to serve as a reliable resource for the SENNA film so please check our website in the coming week as we roll out some amazing new SENNA film features.

How Can You Help?

Another question we are frequently asked is how our fans and supporters can help. Here are a few ideas:

• Sign-up for our newsletter and tell your friends and colleagues about it!

• Introduce them to our website, Facebook page, Twitter account and Vimeo videos.

• Got an idea? A burning question? A referral? Send us an email anytime atOur fan and friend Heath showing his support at the 2011 Australian GP!Info@TheAustinGrandPrix.com. We would love to hear from you!

• Get your hands on the first product promoting the return of Formula One™ to Texas via our COME AND RACE IT™ shirts! We will also be adding more products in the coming months.

• Please send us your pictures in your COME AND RACE IT™ shirt, as we are compiling photographs of our fans from around the world, just like the one shown here from Down Under!

We are extremely grateful to our fans and supporters because we have been building The Austin Grand Prix to serve you. Sometimes we are asked: “Why is it the Austin Grand Prix? Don’t you think that is exclusive of the rest of Texas, or the US, or North America?” We are the Austin Grand Prix because we are a part of the social fabric of the Austin community; we believe over the next twelve months you will start to understand why we love this great city so much. We look forward to welcoming you and we hope you will join us in 2012 for the inaugural United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas.

Thank You and COME AND RACE IT™!

Kerri Olsen and Kevin Olsen

Co-Founders

An Epic Day in Austin, Texas

260 days. That is how long curious Austinites, die-hard F1 fans and everyone in between had to wait since the first F1 USGP Press Conference in July 2010 and this week's coming out party in Austin, Texas. In Tavo's defense, to say they have been busy would be an understatement.

We arrived at the Palmer Events Center on a typical April afternoon in Austin: 80' F (27' C), sunny with a few clouds in the sky, and so many people frolicking about in the neighboring Zilker Park, you begin to wonder if anyone works a typical 9-5 job in this town. As evidenced throughout Austin's cohesive, collaborative, laid-back yet get-down-to-business vibe, we passed by the sunny fun-loving people in the park and walked into the Palmer Events Center, where we were transported to a high tech press conference with a platform for innovation and excitement, and some cool backdrops. The stage was bordered with two giant screens looping some new and some familiar snapshots of Austin; the Williams F1 car served as a focal point and photo op; and about 100 media and invited parties began to fill the room.

We mingled, ran into our friend USF2000 Driver Rodrigo Sanchez, met a few new folks and took our seats behind the "Reserved Row," not knowing who would join us, but impressed when we were joined by Del Valle School Board President Richard Vasquez, Austin City Manager Marc Off, Texas Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, Texas Sen. Kirk Watson, Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell (hard to see from this angle) and Council member Mike Martinez.

SPEED TV's iconic Bob Varsha welcomed everyone and noted that he had visited the construction site and was "impressed with what was being accomplished at the track site." Before introducing the founding team on stage, Red McCombs, Tavo Hellmund and Bobby Epstein, he also shared his newfound love for the city of Austin, and shared our sentiments that it is an active and entertaining town supported by the welcoming and fun-loving people of Austin.

You may recall that McCombs and Epstein were announced as the major financial backers at July's press conference and Tavo is the ring leader in this entire project. McCombs quickly took over and before announcing first order of business, the naming of the track, he reminded people of the scale and magnitude of this project, equating it to "a SuperBowl every year" for the city of Austin. There has been so much buzz around this press conference in the past week, including speculation about what was going to be announced, that we were confident a title sponsor would be named, thereby revealing something of the sort: "The AT&T Williams Momentum Park." That was my calculated guess because AT&T is headquarted in Texas and has strong business and historical ties to central Texas, that Williams F1 car keeps popping up, and Momentum Park was a name that was referenced via some online research.

Alas, McCombs, Epstein and Tavo revealed the track as "Circuit of the Americas - Home of the World Championships, United States," or "COTA" for short. I've heard some mixed reviews of the name, but the thought behind Circuit of the Americas was to tie in the United States with Canada, South and Latin America, where I think F1 fans might rival US F1 fans in number. I'm unable to embed the video here, but SPEED TV just posted a great 8 minute+ video of the highlights of the press conference. If the full press conference is published, we will share that video with you in the future. For now, you can watch the SPEED TV video of this F1 USGP April Press Conference by clicking here.

McCombs then invited Steve Sexton, F1US and now COTA President, to the stage and Steve also shared Varsha's sentiments of the warm welcome he has received as a new Austin resident. Then the discussion transitioned from the "Who" to the "What and Where." This is not just a race track, folks. The Circuit of the Americas is a destination: a high-end, multi-purpose development that has grown from 970 acres to 1,100 planned acres. Tavo began to paint a clearer picture of what we can expect at the Citcuit of the Americas:

• 40,000 square foot, 3-story tall conference center bordering the 300 yard pit area
• 14 executive suites, each 3,600 square feet with elevators, kitchens, latest A/V gear, high-speed connections and capacity for 75 people each (to be used by teams and sponsors on race weekends for meetings and hospitality)
• Main grandstand includes luxury suites for business entertaining and capacity of about 750, including commercial kitchen and cafe
• Media and conference center - business conferences, seminars and receptions, and converting to international media center
• 500-person banquet hall (private or corporate dinners and nonprofit fundraising galas)
• 5,400 square foot Medical Building with year-round use as a training facility (professionals and students) and converting to trauma care center for driver-athletes
• Live music entertainment venue during race and non-race weekends, including indoor and outdoor space, and spanning the equivilent of 3 football fields wide with a capacity of 35,000
• 22-story Observation Deck providing breath-taking and memorable views of the destination set amidst the gorgeous Texas Hill Country
• Entertainment and festival venue with capacity of 35,000

This article, "Circuit of the Americas Partners with Texas Schools," is a great overview of the educational institutions that have jumped on board with COTA and their specific roles "linking classroom learning to practical application work." We are really hoping to hear that Austin's own University of Texas at Austin and Texas State University-San Marcos are also jumping on board!

Tavo continued to highlight the business and economic impact of the facility not only during this fast-paced construction phase that we are currently in, but also the sustained opportunities for local and global companies for the duration of the 10-year contract with Formula One Management and F1 racing:

• Agreement with Austin Energy to build a new energy sub-station in Del Valle
• Research and development opportunities almost solidified with two large auto manufacturers
• Potentially 1300-employees tied to the multi-purpose facility
• Construction expenditures alone of over $400MM, with a focus to keep 80% or more of that in the pockets of local Texan businesses
• In addition to plans for on-site retail, the COTA team is in talks to bring a major hotel developer to the development
• In the course of a single F1 race weekend (which, as we know, is only 3-5 nights out of the facility's 365 days of planned business), you can expect 300,000 guests to spend 3-5 nights in the Austin and surrounding Central Texas areas and spending an average of $1400-1600

Tavo then shifted the focus back to the "Who and What" by introducing two icons in an equally exciting motorsport field: 1993 World GP Motorcycle Champion Kevin Schwantz and 2010 MotoGP "Rookie of the Year" Ben Spies. Schwantz made the highly-anticipated announcement of the addition of MotoGP motorcycle racing to the circuit's lineup. MotoGP is to the world of motorcycle racing what Formula One is to the world of automotive racing: they are both the cream of the crop in their respective fields; partnering the highest advancements in technology and innovation to deliver non-stop excitement to their large international audiences. The introduction of MotoGP's partnership with The Circuit of The Americas facility was met with energetic support from the crowd as Schwantz also reported a 10-year agreement was met to bring MotoGP to Texas from 2013-2022.

While I was live-tweeting snippits of the press conference via our Twitter feed, I heard Schwantz ask Spies "How excited are you to be able to come and race in Austin in 2013?" His response was "Very!" and I think you can expect to see an expansion of our COME AND RACE IT© product line to show our support of MotoGP's introduction to the Texas lineup.

As the press conference wrapped up and we were directed to make our way to the shuttles leaving for the construction tour of the facility, we snagged two great interviews with Bob Varsha of SPEED TV and Christian Epp of Tilke Engineering. You can enjoy them on our dedicated Press Conference page or via our Vimeo Channel.

For all high-def photos and official facility renderings, check out our Gallery.

Next up from us: our recap of the site tour, and hopefully next up from COTA: the "When" and more announcements on the "Who" regarding this decelopment of epic, Texas-sized proporstions.

In the meantime, tell us what you thought of the Press Conference and enjoy the first-ever video of the drive up Turn 1 at The Circuit of The Americas!

On Location at the Circuit Of The Americas from The Austin Grand Prix on Vimeo.

Is Momentum Building at Austin's Newest Park?

Austin's track is gaining momentum, YEEHAW! It's been an amazing couple of weeks since all activity at the SXSW Film, Music and Interactive conference in Austin, Texas. Let's recap:

-Congratulations to Asif Kapadia, Manish Pandey, Working Title Films, Universal and all parties involved with the SENNA film, as release dates have been progressing:

• 13 April - Valencia, Spain - Spanish premiere

• 4 and 6 May - Toronto - Canadian International documentary film festival, "Hot Docs"

• 3 June - UK Release

• 15-19 June - Sydney, Australia Film Festival

• 21 July - Australian Release

• July - US Release

-Asif and the SENNA online outlets (Twitter, Facebook, web) have been working hard to keep us all informed of the latest release info. It is motivating to read inquires from fans all over the world: "When can I see SENNA in MY hometown!?" Keep asking and keep coming back here. We will continue to help bring this movie to you because it truly is an epic film which we so thoroughly enjoyed. Believe it or not, we have even more #SENNAxSW content to share with you in the coming weeks!

Congratulations to the entire Formula One drivers and teams for the amazing first two races of the season. Although Bahrain was cancelled, Sebastian Vettell gave everyone a run for their money at Australia and Malaysia. Check out this Formula 1 interview here.

And now...there have been many reports in the past few weeks that suggest development at the future home of the Austin Grand Prix is racing ahead.

-Tom O'Keefe published his recap of his Texas visit on Autosport today; you can read it here.

-Dave Doolittle, of the Austin American-Statesman, reports that zombie roadkill is halting F1 construction at the site! Oh no!

-Bob Varsha, of SPEED TV, said "We have a delegation from SPEED that’s going to go visit the track and assess the situation with our own eyeballs on April 13."

-During SPEED TV's airing of the Malaysian Grand Prix on April 9/10, they also made an announcement regarding the upcoming April 12 "special news conference" and said they plan on bringing you a live feed on Tuesday night at 8pm ET.

-Austin's KVUE News posted a supershort video of earth-movers and construction at the site from the ground level, however we're still partial to our exclusive aerial video which F1 Russia picked up and sent us viral! Here it is if you'd rather not dig through our archives:

Exclusive: First Aerial Video of Austin Track Construction from The Austin Grand Prix on Vimeo.

So, with all the recent rumblings, we want to know what YOU think will happen at tomorrow's news conference. Here are a few ideas we've heard and/or made up over a few cups of coffee this AM:

• Tavo Hellmund and Bob Varsha will skydive out of an airplane to give you an idea of a real aerial descent upon the future track site, since they weren't too happy with our photos or video.

• Since the Bahrain race was cancelled, construction is really going to ramp up and the Austin race will actually happen in <gasp> 2011 later this year!

• Red Bull is going to return to Austin, the home of their largest U.S. Flugtag audience of 85,000, and create a permanent Flugtag stage constructed over the F1 pit area. (What's Flugtag? Read recap of 2007 event here.) by Lynn M. Stone

• The official F1 USGP team is going to formally name the track: "The Best Little Race House In Texas."

• SPEED TV will start the highly-anticipated 24/7 webcam of progress, so you never have to miss a second of the non-stop action as earthmovers crawl around the track!

• Bernie decided that in addition to artificial rain, he would also like to create artificial snow for future driving "excitement"...in Texas...in the summer.

• While Tavo and Bob dive into the track location, Bernie will be on the ground to catch them atop his new ride, this lovely Texas Longhorn:

What are you expecting tomorrow and what would you like to see?

Before I go, I wanted to introduce you to our expanded product line at COME AND RACE IT©! We now have shirts in 4 different colors:

Natural, Texas Orange, Heather Grey and Ladies Mocha Brown! (Click on the pictures above to go directly to the order page.)

Here's our shirt Down Under at the Australian Grand Prix last month! We would love to get pics of you in your shirts at every Grand Prix and from all over the world. Please send them to us at COMEANDRACEIT {at} gmail.com. Thank you for your ongoing support!

DNQ - So Sorry You Nearly Died, Mr. Webber

At the risk of coming across all Negative Nancy, erm, Negative Norm I mean, I feel like we Austinites should be preparing some sort of apology, or better yet

and

proactively a Plan of Action, to assist visitors who wind up lost, shrieking with terror, at the inanity of our road naming "system", the ineptitude of most drivers in the city and I35 in general. 

I'm not sure South by Southwest is a particularly apt control for the

How Bad Could It Be?

experiment, simply because there are so many people in the city, walking, riding, driving, ambling, crashing, and falling on our streets that it really bears no resemblance to what things are normally like here in fair Austin. If you aren't "doing" SXSW with total commitment, and willing to experience and accept any circumstance that might befall you

Courtesy of www.velocci.com

(a friend of mine was run over by a train of Segways, which he finds more of a point of pride, something to tell the grandkids, than an annoyance), then you probably just stay at home and pretend the downtown area has been invaded by

Captain Trips

or

Mongol invaders

or

zombies

until it passes like the mist from Stephen King's mind. But what's going to happen when the comparatively small but nonetheless horde-like throngs of people come for the first ever United States Grand Prix in Austin Texas, in Wheneverber of 2012?

We need an ambassador to explain the clusterfrak that is Austin traffic and assuage the anguish, because if anyone so much as leaves their hotel to wander about the city, I'm afraid we'll never see them again. Could you imagine, as a ridiculous yet terrifying example, if

Mark Webber

decides to take his rented Chrysler Sebring and head from the Four Seasons up to

The Draught House

for a pint? The scandal! All it takes is

one car trip

to MoPac, and they might as well have entered the

Parisian catacombs

without a light. MoPac/Loop 1? And if you're south coming from the airport and need to get onto MoPac, especially going south, how do you begin to explain the route without having them end up in

Albuquerque

? Loop 360/Capital of Texas Highway? Highway 183/Research Boulevard? Or My God! What if they wander up to 290/Koenig Lane/Northland Drive/2222??? The

naming alone

is an Abbott and Costello bit. 

Then there's the elephant in the room. I'm looking at you, Austin drivers. Glass houses and black kettles and everything, but come on. This is just getting ridiculous. My wife and I have a game, more of a contest really, called How Many Times Were You Almost Killed on the Way Home Today? It's a lot of fun, for the whole family even! Points are based on the agreed upon ineptitude of the driver who almost offs you (wandering across lanes, reaching for a dropped cell phone, sleeping are obvious and oft cited circumstances), compounded by the speed involved (double points for combined speed as a result of near head-on collisions) and the number of other vehicles, property and/or pedestrians also nearly snuffed out in the blink of an eye. You do lose points, however, if the nearly-an-explosion was the result of someone deciding within the last 100 feet that, "Oh, THERE'S my exit!" and cutting across four lanes of traffic at a near 90-degree angle while doing 70+ MPH. Because really, you'd only end up with scores more like arena football, and that just gets boring.

Griping about traffic on an F1 blog? Trite and useless, but in terms of bridging that gap between fans and the city? We need a plan NOW.

Austin traffic sucks

. 

Courtesy of www.capmac.org

OK, so did you know there's a race this weekend? And suddenly my incessant,

"Don't count out Button this year

" diatribes don't seem so fanboyish, now do they? This season is potentially low hanging fruit for a driver like Button. Yes, even my grandma knows he's renowned for his smooth driving, but in a year when it's decided

tires specifically designed to suck

should be used, he's poised to capitalize on the situation better than most other drivers, save

maybe Webber

. Vettel, Hamilton and Alonso, all superior competitors to Button, are also far more aggressive. I've seen those guys eat tires like Homer eats donuts. I (and everyone else, honestly) foresee the pits being a lot busier, at least until they can adapt, and Button staying out longer while turning in consistent lap times. Toss in the moveable rear wing and KERS, and slower traffic becomes less of an issue than it has in the past. He could really create some gaps out there. The final practice session in Australia seems to also bear out the fact McLaren didn't know how good their cars were until they decided to stop trying to be too clever for their own good and slap a more conventional exhaust on them. Lo and behold. Never count out Whitmarsh.

Also never count out Ross Brawn. The Merc team's Rosberg and Schumacher didn't shred in practice, but they were both fast and probably good enough for Q3, with a bit of luck. Because the other half of the stuff that isn't as exciting as the actual racing drama is that pit and race strategy will play a much larger role in outcomes than in the past. Between tire and wing and KERS management,

drivers are going to have a lot to do

in addition to driving perfect lines and not getting killed. Smart team bosses, and Brawn is truly the

Ozymandias

of F1, will be calling those shots from on high. Same as they've always done really, but it just seems the more complicated the cars get and the more aspects of the race the drivers are expected to control, the teams that will do the best are the teams with a General Patton in control, who understands every individual action the entire team performs, from the pit member who holds the fresh tires to the driver in the cockpit, and can visualize the entire clockwork mechanism in motion. This year is going to be a chess match, and probably as interesting from a management perspective as it will undoubtedly be on the circuit. I think it'll be a surprisingly good year for Mercedes, but I'm not going to say better for Schumacher or Rosberg.  

Yet

.

Strap in. Formula 1 2011, here we go.

EXCLUSIVE: First Aerial Video of Austin Track Construction

Ever since I snapped the first aerial pictures of the future Austin track site out the window of my Southwest Airline flight in November, we’ve been pumped about this next post. An old friend and pilot took us up yesterday to shoot some amazing aerial footage of the track site.

The following video shows the view from our flight path coming from downtown Austin, which is west of the track site. We flew in over downtown Austin and then headed due east over the Austin Bergstrom International Airport (“ABIA”), paused for the commercial flight pattern (while two planes took off, which was pretty cool to watch from above) and then headed south to the track.  The Austin track is situated about 2.5 miles southeast of ABIA.  We proceeded to fly clockwise around the track. It was easy to point out the location from the air as the biggest thing to notice is the large, sand-filled rectangular area which borders the road FM 812 on the south end of the track.  Last week the Statesman reported that the attorney for the USGP project, Richard Suttle "confirmed that the layout for the track has been cleared," but from yesterday's flight it looked to us as though only a third of the Austin land has been graded. Maybe we are misunderstanding the context of his quote. What do you think?

Exclusive: First Aerial Video of Austin Track Construction from The Austin Grand Prix on Vimeo.

More Video and High Resolution Pictures coming soon!!

Soundtrack courtesy of Ghostland Observatory, one of our favorite Austin bands, check them out on MySpace.

A special thanks to Ben and Coy, without which this would not have been possible!

Exclusive: Interview with Senna Director Asif Kapadia - #SENNAxSW

On Sunday I got the chance to sit down with Kevin and Asif to talk about how social media has affected the release of the movie, our growth of The Austin Grand Prix, and the Formula One community. The Social Media Club House at SXSW in Austin, Texas was the venue, as Social Media Club hosted a full four days of live Ustream broadcasts from the house. We had hoped to patch in the film's writer, Manish Pandey, to join us in the discussion but were unable to do so. Enjoy...

Exclusive: Interview with SENNA Director Asif Kapadia from The Austin Grand Prix on Vimeo.

Behind The Scenes Gallery