{"id":30022,"date":"2022-11-08T17:44:20","date_gmt":"2022-11-08T21:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=30022"},"modified":"2022-11-08T17:44:20","modified_gmt":"2022-11-08T21:44:20","slug":"orange-barrels-detroit-gp-fixes-the-damn-roads-for-2023-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2022\/11\/orange-barrels-detroit-gp-fixes-the-damn-roads-for-2023-race","title":{"rendered":"Orange barrels: Detroit GP fixes the damn roads for 2023 race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Detroit<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 The Detroit Grand Prix is making a promise to the state of Michigan: it\u2019s going to fix the damn roads.<\/p>\n

At least the roads around the Detroit Renaissance Center, where the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix Presented by Lear is moving for June 2-4, 2023. The 1.7-mile track \u2014 its main, east-west corridors of Jefferson Avenue and Atwater Street choked with construction barrels \u2014 has begun to take shape and event organizers gave sponsors and media a fall preview of the track this week. It\u2019s going to be quick.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s a minor inconvenience rights now, but I can guarantee the citizens of Detroit these will be the smoothest roads in our city in about 2-3 weeks,” said Detroit GP President Bud Denker at a sponsor reception on the 72nd floor of the RenCen. “The Belle Isle track was 2.4 miles, the new track is just 1.7 miles. Belle Isle races were 70 laps. In downtown Detroit, cars will come around 100-plus times. That means more action, more things going on for the fans. It\u2019s a nine-turn track with a straightaway as long as Indianapolis Motor Speedway\u2019s main straight and you know how fast they go there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t expect Indy\u2019s 240-mph speeds, but expect IndyCars to hit 180 mph after taking a 90-degree left onto Jefferson from Rivard Street (Turn 2) and screaming westwards, past the RenCen, and into a 180-degree hairpin at Griswold. From there, IndyCars will plunge down to the waterfront, emerging on Atwater Street via an uphill S-turn that Denker calls \u201cMonte Carlo\u201d after the famed European street race.<\/p>\n

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\u201cJust being on Jefferson is going to be a highlight. Going past the Joe Louis fist with a hairpin around it . . . is going to be a big talking point,\u201d said two-time IndyCar champ and Penske team driver Josef Newgarden, who got a tour of the track Thursday. \u201cIt will be a quick street circuit, probably comparable to St. Petersburg where we start the season with 60-second laps.”<\/p>\n

Jefferson is being paved because it must be billiard-table smooth to handle cars at that velocity carrying spine-crunching, 4,000-pounds of downforce. With 50% of ticket sales free, the straight should be packed with fans as the cars stream into the slow, 40 mph, 180-degree Griswold hairpin.<\/p>\n

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\u201cJefferson is going to be 5-6 lanes wide (for) 0.7 miles, which is quite a distance to get a tow on somebody into a 40-mph hairpin,\u201d smiled Newgarden. \u201cThat provides an interesting opportunity for overtaking and defending.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moving from Belle Isle back downtown for the first time since 1991, the track is an ambitious re-imagining of one of IndyCar\u2019s iconic races. Make that events.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis is an event, not a race,\u201d said Denker, who sees the GP as the centerpiece of a weekend where fans can enjoy racing (including support races from IMSA sportscar and Trans Am), attend concerts at Hart Plaza, drink in Detroit River views, dine at Campus Martius restaurants, shop along Woodward, even bring their boats to slips along the waterfront behind the Port Authority building (already booked for the weekend by a Canadian firm). A Chevrolet bridge will allow fans to cross the main straight to get back and forth from Hart Plaza to downtown businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy favorite thing about street circuits is it\u2019s like going to a downtown music concert,\u201d said Newgarden, who hails from Nashville, which has one of the series\u2019 most successful street events. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing better than going to a live race.\u201d<\/p>\n

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While much of the track will be free to fans, there is money to be made selling suites to the east of the RenCen overlooking an IndyCar first: dual, parallel pit lanes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t find a 1,000-feet stretch anywhere to put a pit lane. Those are the things you have to consider to build a track,\u201d said Denker. \u201cInstead, we\u2019ve got a pit lane that\u2019s 500 feet long \u2014 and on each side the drivers will pit. Some cars will pit to the left, some cars to the right, and at the end of pit lane they will come back together to go back on the race track. Never been done before. It\u2019s an engineering marvel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking down from the RenCen\u2019s southeast tower, the two concrete pads just laid by construction crews look like miniature, parallel landing strips at Detroit Metro Airport.<\/p>\n

But when completed for racing next June, they will be a hive of activity. \u201cRaces are won or lost in the pit lane,\u201d said Newgarden. \u201cWhen I come in off the button, I\u2019m going to have to remember which side of pit lane I\u2019m on?\u201d<\/p>\n

Pity the driver who forgets.<\/p>\n

Behind the pit lane will be 70 suites \u2014 57 of them already spoken for \u2014 which dwarfs the 23 at the old Belle Isle venue. The suites are housed in a huge structure, imported from the PGA\u2019s Phoenix Open golf tourney, which offers fans a front row seat on the furious pit activity \u2014 as well as a view of Franklin Street, where the checkered flag will be thrown.<\/p>\n

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One of those suites will be occupied by Huntington Bank, which recently located its Detroit headquarters downtown on Woodward. \u201cWe\u2019ve been sponsoring this event for 10 years,\u201d said Huntington regional president Eric Dietz, \u201cand we\u2019re really excited to see the race come back downtown, where our employees will be able to walk to the track.\u201d<\/p>\n

Huntington Bank is also sponsoring two Detroit neighborhoods with millions of dollars to be put into infrastructure and assisting the transport of families to the event. Each of Detroit\u2019s nine districts will display a colorful pop-up IndyCar sculpture.<\/p>\n

The sculptures are part of an artistic push by the GP that includes decorating the track with large murals from local artists.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a community focus on how we designed the race circuit,\u201d said Michael Montri, Penske Entertainment vice president. \u201cThe focus is to help revitalize the downtown as well as the neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under Penske Corporation ownership, IndyCar has transcended auto racing in the last two years as a cultural symbol. The Memorial Day weekend 2021 Indy 500 was America\u2019s first mega-sporting event as a vaccinated population emerged from the pandemic \u2014 the race attracting more than 100,000 fans \u2014 to celebrate Helio Castroneves’ historic fourth 500 win. That was immediately followed by the Detroit GP \u2014 the first major race to go maskless, representing a return to normal after months of controversial government restrictions.<\/p>\n

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Denker hopes the 2023 Detroit Grand Prix will bring similar revival to a Detroit downtown that has suffered through the pandemic. Corporations went to remote workplaces with the resulting dirth of people downtown affecting restaurants and retail establishments.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are going to bring a lot of people down here from both sides of the border,\u201d said Denker. \u201cWe have so much support from Windsor. Fans can come through (the) Windsor tunnel, turn right and park less than a half-mile away in the middle of the race track.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newgarden said he would love to be the first to win on the downtown track, though if he does he\u2019ll miss getting dunked in the Belle Isle Fountain. Instead, Victory Circle will be right in front of the RenCen\u2019s Wintergarden on the Detroit river.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t recommend jumping in the Detroit River,\u201d laughed Denker to Newgarden. \u201cWe might never see you again with the river current.\u201d<\/p>\n

Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Detroit\u00a0\u2014 The Detroit Grand Prix is making a promise to the state of Michigan: it\u2019s going to fix the damn roads. At least the roads around the Detroit Renaissance Center, where the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix Presented by Lear is moving for June 2-4, 2023. The 1.7-mile track \u2014 its main, east-west corridors of Jefferson […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30022"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30022"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30023,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30022\/revisions\/30023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}