I know this isn’t news anymore, but holy cow, my hometown of Baltimore actually approved an out-of-the-box idea to bring in revenue for the city. And in case you’ve been living under a jack stand (or 4) and haven’t heard, the City of Baltimore will be hosting The Baltimore Grand Prix August 5 – 7, 2011.
This is astounding to me for 2 reasons: 1. Baltimore did something progressive instead of tax its residents, businesses, and what few tourists it does have to death and 2. The Indy Racing League is coming to town!
I admit, I’m not an avid IRL/CART (even F1) fan; I’m a Roundy-round fan (go Mark Martin!). But the Mayor of Baltimore Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake’s announcement that the city had approved the event brought IRL to the forefront of my attention again. I even watched the Indy 500 this past weekend, and I haven’t watched that race in years.
To be fair, I didn’t wait until the Mayor’s announcement to see how the Region could get involved in case the City actually didn’t wreck in the final turn of the last lap. In January, I got in touch with the Baltimore Racing Development Corporation (BRD), despite the fact that nothing had been approved. I got in touch with them to make an early impression, to get in at the ground level. BRD and I decided to wait on any further effort, in terms of planning/communication, on both of our parts until a decision by the city had been made.
The mid-May day the Mayor made her announcement, I got back in touch with BRD. This race was quickly becoming reality, and I needed to make sure that we are still top of mind!
Today, BRD held its Baltimore Grand Prix Kickoff and Press Conference only 3 blocks from my office, so I decided to “crash” it. Eric Kriemelmeyer, Secretary of the BoD and Straightpipe Editor-in-Chief, came with me.
There were lots of names there:
Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley
Mayor of Baltimore Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake
Jay Davidson, President of Baltimore Racing Development Corporation
Terry Angstadt, President of the IRL’s commercial division
Graham Rahal
Al Unser, Jr.
Martyn Thake, course designer
Chuck Kosich, General Manager of MJ Promotions
The press conference was primarily about revealing the new logo, the new website (http://baltimoregrandprix.com), and what the race will bring to the City of Baltimore. It will be a “3 day festival of speed” that will be family friendly, will appeal to the hardcore race fans, showcase the city, and deliver equity to its sponsor partners. It will be far more than just an IRL race, including free concerts, carnivals, karting, other races, and I can’t remember everything else they mentioned.
It’ll also make my commute to work an increasingly horrific nightmare for the next year and change, but at least the roads will be very nice after that!
All sarcasm aside, their plans sound fantastic if everything comes to fruition. Seriously.
I also said that they said “other races” didn’t I. Why yes, yes I did. To that end, Eric and I made it a point to shake hands/speak to Chuck Kosich, the GM of Promotions for the race. I’ve been in touch with him via email in the past, so this wasn’t a complete cold call, as it were. I impressed on him how excited the SCCA is to get involved as we have multiple groups interested in being a support race.
Eric and I also made it a point to meet the person I spoke to about getting our volunteers involved. We had a lengthy conversation, and we will be working together over the next number of months.
Other thoughts/impressions from the event:
Eric got Al Unser, Jr.’s autograph. Lucky dog! And Graham Rahal really does look that young in person!
It’s an exciting day in Baltimore.
P.S. Keep an eye out on the Straightpipe for pictures from the event!
Cheers!
-Evanthe
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Don’t drive faster than your angel can fly.