Race Series Coming to D.C. Streets
By Tarik El-Bashir
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 8, 2001; Page D01
The sports car racing circuit American Le Mans Series and the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission have reached an agreement that will bring a road race to Washington next July, sources close to the situation said yesterday.
The event -- Washington's first major auto race -- will be held on a temporary street course near RFK Stadium, according to a source. Until now, the only options for area race fans were Richmond International Raceway or Dover (Del.) Downs International Speedway, where the NASCAR Winston Cup Series and Indy Racing League compete.
Details of the agreement, including specifics about the layout and length of the course, will be announced on Thursday at a news conference in Washington. According to a press release, Mayor Anthony Williams will "make a major announcement concerning a multiyear international auto racing agreement in the nation's capital."
Christopher Lencheski, founder of National Grand Prix Holdings, LLC, which has been working with the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) to bring a race to Washington, declined to comment. Attempts to reach Bobby Goldwater, president of the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission, were unsuccessful.
The ALMS, founded in 1999 by entrepreneur and team owner Don Panoz, is a series of sports car endurance racing events patterned after the world-famous 24 Hours of Le Mans. After an eight-race inaugural season, the ALMS expanded to 12 races worldwide in 2000 and will run nine races -- all held on permanent road courses in the United States -- this season. Its premier event is the 12 hours at Sebring (Fla.) International Raceway, the oldest sports car race in America.
The ALMS has four classes of sports cars -- LMP900, LMP675, GTS and GT. The LMP900 and LMP675 classes are composed of low-slung exotics, closed-wheel single-seat racers built by Panoz, Audi, Riley & Scott and Cadillac. The GTS cars are race-prepared Dodge Vipers, Chevrolet Corvettes and Saleens. The GT cars include race-prepared BMW M3s, Callaways, Corvettes and Porsche 911 GT3s.
Each class has specific rules, but all of the classes compete on the track at the same time for the overall win, as well as wins in the four different classes.
Some of the series' premier drivers include Ron Fellows of Corvette Racing, David Brabham of Panoz Motor Sports and Boris Said and Hans Stuck of Prototype Technology Group (PTG).
The Washington race will be the only ALMS event held on a temporary street course next season. In its three seasons, the series has raced only once on a temporary street course, in Adelaide, Australia, last year. The event was wildly popular and attended by more than 140,000 fans.
Meantime, Championship Auto Racing Teams, one of the nation's premier open-wheel racing circuits, has also shown interest in racing in Washington. Talks are ongoing, a source said.
Last year, CART hired Chris Pook, the president and CEO of the Grand Prix of Long Beach and an expert on building temporary street courses, to serve as a consultant for identifying U.S. urban areas where such a race would be successful. Under Pook's watch, the Grand Prix of Long Beach has become one of CART's most popular races, drawing 92,000 fans on race day and bringing as much as $200 million to the economy of the city of Long Beach annually. It is conceivable that the ALMS and CART could hold races on a temporary street course in Washington on the same weekend sometime in the future, a source said.
The LeMans Series "really opens the door to motor racing in Washington," said Mike Zizzo, CART's vice president of Competition Public Relations. "It's going to be great to see how successful it is. We're still pursuing races in several metropolitan areas on the East Coast. Racing in Washington is definitely intriguing."
© 2001 The Washington Post Company
