Why Baltimore was great for IndyCar

IndyCar's plans to visit to the east-coast harbour city of Baltimore had its detractors, be they locals concerned about road closures, or the forces of nature - the area was hit by an earthquake and a hurricane in the week prior to the race.

But Baltimore is a city toughened by its past, and it takes more than a bit of rain and some angry locals to derail things. This, after all, was the staging ground for the battle between the British and US forces that led to Francis Scott Key writing 'The Star-Spangled Banner' after witnessing the bombardment from the deck of a prison ship.

Predictably, there were glitches.

Track work delayed Friday practice @ autosport.com

Friday's running was seriously curtailed by the small matter of the safety fencing not being fully installed, and behind the scenes there were a few hiccups on the organisational front. This is to be expected from a debut street race, and no doubt a lot of the problems will be learned from and ironed out for next year.

Weigh the negatives up against the positives from the weekend though, and there's no contest. IndyCar and Baltimore are onto a winner.

With the race paddock being secreted in an underground car park beneath a conference centre, organisers were able to transform the entire infield area into a festival, with live music, food-and-drink stands selling everything from frozen margaritas to crab cakes, and other cash-draining distractions.

How much this had to do with the frankly staggering number of fans milling about is anyone's guess (attendance was estimated at well over 120,000 for the weekend), but it helped to create a fantastic atmosphere - even on Friday morning, when the cars weren't running yet.

The inclusion of the Camden Yards baseball stadium within the circuit was another nice touch, linking Baltimore's newest sporting event with one of its most precious sporting properties, the Orioles. (If you're an NFL fan, the Ravens play just across the street).

Early reports were that hotel revenues were up 44 per cent during the race weekend, and officials are estimating that the Baltimore Grand Prix has generated up to $70 million in economic impact, although full figures won't be known for another month.

So what did IndyCar get out of it?

A fantastic new circuit, for starters. In the lead-up to the first practice session, drivers weren't sure what to make of the proliferation of bumps, or the ultra-tight first corner, or the dinky little chicane at the start of the main straight (installed to protect the cars from the light rail lines that cross the circuit, although Dario Franchitti straight-lined the chicane during practice just to see what the train tracks were like at speed. The Scot reckoned that the cars could have coped).

Both that chicane and the more treacherous one at Turn 5 (which claimed Ryan Briscoe's car earlier in the weekend) could be revised next year, but on the whole the highly technical nature of the track appeared to be a universal hit along pitlane.

The action was close around the city's streets © LAT

The race was also a huge result for IndyCar in terms of expanding its appeal.

Baltimore was virgin territory as far as motorsport is concerned, and there seemed to be genuine enthusiasm for the event once things got underway. The 2010 US Census reported that the city's population is 63.3 per cent African-American, and simply milling through the crowd gave an impression that those who had turned up represented a far more diverse cross-section of the community than you see at many other events, not just in terms of ethnicity, but also with regard to age and gender. Put more simply, everyone was there. And from chatting to locals throughout the weekend, it sounds like most will be back. Now, all IndyCar has to do is get these new converts to subscribe to Versus.

Is there a lesson here for other series? It's hard to say. New street races are phenomenally difficult to pull off in terms of both cost and logistics, so it's not as simple as just parachuting the World Touring Car Championship into the middle of Seattle and expecting it to be a hit.

But when street races work, they can be phenomenal. In terms of atmosphere, two of the best street events I've ever attended are the V8 Supercar race in Adelaide and Champ Cars on the Gold Coast in Surfers Paradise. Baltimore has a multi-year commitment to motorsport, and the genuine potential to take its place among the classics.