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CoTA claims Formula One 3-day attendance was 250,00.


NickHolt

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113,162 watch Sebastian Vettel make history at Circuit of The Americas™ during 2013 FORMULA 1 UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX -

Infiniti Red Bull Racing’s World Champion is unstoppable, winning eighth consecutive Grand Prix

 

AUSTIN, Texas (Nov. 17, 2013) – A massive crowd of 113,162 race fans watched Formula 1™ racing’s new driving powerhouse, Infiniti Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel, make history, as the 2013 World Champion driver scored his eighth consecutive Grand Prix victory at Circuit of The Americas (COTA). In doing so, the 26-year-old German wunderkind topped the record of seven consecutive wins set by his racing idol, Michael Schumacher, who retired after the 2012 season.

 

Vettel has claimed 12 races so far in 2013 and can extend his winning streak to nine if all goes well in next weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix, the final race of the season.

 

Lotus F1 driver Romain Grosjean claimed the second spot on the podium, while Vettel’s teammate, Mark Webber, took third. Red Bull took home the constructor’s trophy for the race, having already secured the Constructor’s World Championship title two races ago in India.

 

Three-(day) attendance for COTA’s second Formula 1 Grand Prix was 250,324, with 58,276 fans attending Friday’s practice sessions and 78,886 turning out for Saturday’s qualifying rounds.

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Over a quarter-million people showed over the three day F1 event. Sure they did. If that number's right, then Central Texas Speedway had 5,000 fans in the stands for their 2-day show on the same weekend. I can write a press release that says anything the guy who's paying me the money wants me to say...

 

And I'm sure the CoTA count would have been closer to half a million if it weren't for the Texas game and Central Texas Speedway racing in direct competiton.

 

Hopefully Texas will send a crack (wrong choice of words, but you know what I mean) team of auditors in to confirm CoTA's numbers before passing out more of my hard-earned money to Mr. Epstein and Mr. McCombs.

 

Nick

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A couple of winter Texans who are big F1 fans and go to the Canadian race every year came by today. They said they will not be going to COTA next year. Between the tickets not getting to them in Michigan until the day befor they were to leave. $10.00 dollar beer, $15.00 burgers, parking issues and being ripped of for the cost of parking their motor home. Also a poor PA system they said you couldn't hear it when no cars were running. I guess at the Canada race they send the PA out over an FM radio freq. so you can hear it on ear phones. Any way they were not happy.

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A couple of winter Texans who are big F1 fans and go to the Canadian race every year came by today. They said they will not be going to COTA next year. Between the tickets not getting to them in Michigan until the day befor they were to leave. $10.00 dollar beer, $15.00 burgers, parking issues and being ripped of for the cost of parking their motor home. Also a poor PA system they said you couldn't hear it when no cars were running. I guess at the Canada race they send the PA out over an FM radio freq. so you can hear it on ear phones. Any way they were not happy.

A BIG TEXAS JOKE THAT AINT FUNNY

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I don't want to sound like I am bitching just passing along what they told me. I understand that this is year two and it looks like some management changes are on the way I hope they can get it figured out. From the pics I've seen (on this wonderful forum) it is an awesome place. My winter Texan friends just felt like they were being gouged at every turn. Oh and they went all three days so I guess they count as 6. I did tell them to e-mail the track with their comments so maybe it will change.

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I thought this went a little smoother than last year, especially when it came to parking (I was parked in a shuttle lot though, can't speak for the parking at the track). The PA definitely seemed off. I remember last year you could hear it even when the cars drove by. Still the only real complaint I had was how little shade there is around the track. I know that was uncharacteristically hot, but still there's gotta be something done about that. Especially since I'm sure there were a lot of people there who aren't used to that kind of heat.

 

I enjoyed it. Well worth the cost. Frankly, the only reason I'm even on the fence about next year is cause of the new regulations for the cars, especially those V6 turbos. <_< F1 just isn't F1 without that chill-down-your-spine banshee scream....

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Over a quarter-million people showed over the three day F1 event. Sure they did. If that number's right, then Central Texas Speedway had 5,000 fans in the stands for their 2-day show on the same weekend. I can write a press release that says anything the guy who's paying me the money wants me to say...

 

And I'm sure the CoTA count would have been closer to half a million if it weren't for the Texas game and Central Texas Speedway racing in direct competiton.

 

Hopefully Texas will send a crack (wrong choice of words, but you know what I mean) team of auditors in to confirm CoTA's numbers before passing out more of my hard-earned money to Mr. Epstein and Mr. McCombs.

 

Nick

Nick,

 

i couldn't have said it better. this is one screwed up use of our tax dollars and we the people are being lied to by the promoters and owners of COTA as well as our elected officials. They scheduled the race on top of the UT game ion hopes that the hotel rooms would actually fill up and they could take the credit. it is truly outrageous that we will give them 250 million plus dollars WTF

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Over a quarter-million people showed over the three day F1 event. Sure they did. If that number's right, then Central Texas Speedway had 5,000 fans in the stands for their 2-day show on the same weekend. I can write a press release that says anything the guy who's paying me the money wants me to say...

 

And I'm sure the CoTA count would have been closer to half a million if it weren't for the Texas game and Central Texas Speedway racing in direct competiton.

 

Hopefully Texas will send a crack (wrong choice of words, but you know what I mean) team of auditors in to confirm CoTA's numbers before passing out more of my hard-earned money to Mr. Epstein and Mr. McCombs.

 

Nick

I agree Nick. There's no way those numbers are accurate. I hear people saying they believe the numbers because the area they were in, usually T1 or T15, was crowded. I'm sure they were crowded. Those are generally the most crowded areas of the track. The thing is that most people have no idea how many people the grandstands hold or what 1000 or 10,000 people looks like, and they see a lot of people out there, so they believe what they're told. Also, most people have no idea the racing out there is heavily subsidized by the state or that the subsidy is tied to the attendance, so even if they realize the attendance numbers are being fudged, they don't care. After all, that's what happens at sporting events everywhere, right?

 

The biggest fudging for this USGP occurred with the Friday attendance, imho. There just weren't even close to 58K people out there. There's no way. MAYBE half that number.

 

The problem, though, is that there won't be a team of state auditors going out to the track, at least not the way things are set up now. The funding for the 2012 USGP was based on the economic impact estimate using 300K attendance for the weekend. The comptroller paid out the METF funds within a month after that race, iirc, but the economic impact analysis ( http://www.texasahead.org/tax_programs/eve...Event_FINAL.pdf ) wasn't released until September of this year. Of course, to nobody's surprise, the Comptroller's analysis said it was all good despite an attendance shortfall of 10-11%.

 

The analysis relies heavily on numbers provided by the event(s)themselves and on what basically amount to guesstimates of increased tax revenues. No event has ever been told to return any money after failing to meet their projections (which is what the subsidy amounts are determined by), as COTA has failed to do every time.

 

In the analysis, the comptroller goes to great lengths to cover her arse and make wiggle room by explaining that it's really very difficult to judge accurately the actual tax revenue increase from the event and to distinguish that increase from increases due to other factors not involved with the event. She also explains that her office really doesn't know how many people come from out of state, how long they stayed, or how much they spent...but that it would be really cool if they did, because that's probably the most important part of the picture.

 

In other words, they decided it's ok to give COTA tens of millions of dollars a year based on COTA's own projections, which even COTA's own inflated attendance figures don't live up to, and the Comptroller admits right in the analysis that she doesn't know the actual economic impact from the race.

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A couple of winter Texans who are big F1 fans and go to the Canadian race every year came by today. They said they will not be going to COTA next year. Between the tickets not getting to them in Michigan until the day befor they were to leave. $10.00 dollar beer, $15.00 burgers, parking issues and being ripped of for the cost of parking their motor home. Also a poor PA system they said you couldn't hear it when no cars were running. I guess at the Canada race they send the PA out over an FM radio freq. so you can hear it on ear phones. Any way they were not happy.

Hell, when I went to the Canadian GP in 2010, I could hear the PA even WITH the cars going by. It was amazing. They also have monitors big enough that you can actually read the graphics and follow the race just like if you were watching it on your couch.

 

I have no complaints whatever about my entire Canadian GP experience. Ticketing, ingress/egress, hospitality, city/residents, all first class. If there is one area where COTA has an advantage, it's the great GA views. Montreal's GA views are not good at all. Didn't affect me as I sat in the stands, and they can't do anything about it though. About the parking, COTA's parking is the most expensive I've seen anywhere, for anything. In Montreal, even if you have a car, you just drive near to a Metro station and park cheap, then get a cheap Metropass and ride to the island. Best, easiest access I've ever seen at a sporting event anywhere.

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I don't want to sound like I am bitching just passing along what they told me. I understand that this is year two and it looks like some management changes are on the way I hope they can get it figured out. From the pics I've seen (on this wonderful forum) it is an awesome place. My winter Texan friends just felt like they were being gouged at every turn. Oh and they went all three days so I guess they count as 6. I did tell them to e-mail the track with their comments so maybe it will change.

Sure, everyone loves the track. It really is an awesome facility. The problems start elsewhere.

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I thought this went a little smoother than last year, especially when it came to parking (I was parked in a shuttle lot though, can't speak for the parking at the track). The PA definitely seemed off. I remember last year you could hear it even when the cars drove by. Still the only real complaint I had was how little shade there is around the track. I know that was uncharacteristically hot, but still there's gotta be something done about that. Especially since I'm sure there were a lot of people there who aren't used to that kind of heat.

 

I enjoyed it. Well worth the cost. Frankly, the only reason I'm even on the fence about next year is cause of the new regulations for the cars, especially those V6 turbos. <_< F1 just isn't F1 without that chill-down-your-spine banshee scream....

Re: the shade, they really do need to do something. It's not that hard or expensive to create some shade, but Epstein has shown he really doesn't want to put anything into the track grounds beyond the absolute bare minimum. During V8 Supercars it was brutal. 95 isn't too terrible until you just have absolutely nowhere to go all day to get out of the sun.

 

I'm trying to reserve judgement on the new engines, but I personally believe they're moving the wrong direction.

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BTW y'all, I just want to thank Nick for creating this forum and creating & maintaining the topics. I haven't been able to participate lately, but I plan to be here more often in the upcoming months.

You're a great asset to this site, AustinF1. You're smack-dab in the middle of the F1 world while most of us are smack-dab somewhere else... LOL

 

Nick

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