Formula One Hopes to Build on US Grand Prix

Formula One leaves America hoping to develop a love affair with the locals after another well-attended race. Jaguar's Eddie Irvine, who finished a provisional fourth at Sunday's US Grand Prix pending an appeal by the Jordan team over Jarno Trulli's disqualification, summed up the feeling.

"It's fantastic," he said of an event that officials said was attended by some 175,000 fans despite the reluctance of many to travel after the recent attacks on New York and Washington. "Formula One is an acquired taste and if we can stay in America long enough for people to acquire the taste... it's like when you start drinking wine, at first you don't appreciate the good stuff.

"But the more you drink it, the more you start to notice the differences."

Ten years ago, in 1991, Formula One turned its back on the United States for nine years after a poorly-attended race in Phoenix. Some 25,000 turned out for that Grand Prix - and locals mercilessly claimed that an ostrich race elsewhere in town drew far bigger crowds.

"At a downtown mortuary and funeral home a man reportedly sat up in his coffin and asked what was going on," a local paper joked at the time. "Told it was the Grand Prix, he lay back down again."

Such jibes could not be used now against Formula One, with Sunday's race ranking as one of the world's three best-attended single-day sporting events.

Chanting Crowds

Crowds chanted their heroes' names after the race and fought for the spoils as Ferrari's World Champion Michael Schumacher threw his cap into a scrum of supporters. Drivers and teams responded to the September 11 attacks on America by showing solidarity with the victims and decorating their cars with US flags.

The Grand Prix Drivers' Association (GPDA) also announced after the race that all the drivers would donate a personal race item - mostly helmets or overalls - to be sold for charity. The talk now is of perhaps moving ahead and staging more than one race in America, a logical move given the upheaval in transporting several Boeing 747 loads of equipment across the world.

"We're committed to doing what we can to increase awareness and interest," said Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Tony George.

"I think this year and next year will be important in the stabilising of this event and hopefully growing the interest...to the point where in a year or two or three down the road there may be consideration given to a second round in the United States."

Another Race

The country held two rounds in the past, with USA East and West races, and in 1982 hosted three rounds of the Championship with a race in a Las Vegas casino carpark joining Detroit and Long Beach. Last year's race was the first at 'The Brickyard', the Indianapolis oval with its proud claim to be the "Racing Capital of the World."

McLaren boss Ron Dennis was in favour of another, providing the calendar did not grow.

"The country's big enough to support more than one grand Prix," he said. "Certainly it would make more sense to have two races here than in some of the other countries in which we have two. From a geographical point of view a West Coast race would make a lot of sense.

"Having said that, it would be providing that it doesn't actually push the number of Grands Prix beyond 17, which is one too many as far as we are concerned."