With the Houston Grand Prix just around the corner, folks are working long hours to get Reliant Park ready for the big race. Austin Crossley, with Grand Prix of Houston, is blogging about the race preps for KHOU.com.

GRAND PRIX HOUSTON

Monday, April 16

Creating a Three-Day Festival of Speed & Entertainment

The Grand Prix of Houston doesn’t begin until Friday, but the action is already fast and furious down at JAGFlo Speedway at Reliant Park. Construction on the JAGFlo Speedway racetrack itself is pretty much complete, but over the next few days we will transform Reliant Park into a giant “Festival of Speed and Entertainment” before the gates open on April 20.

The Choice Homes Family Fun & Sports Zone will be one of the highlights of the weekend for kids of all ages. We will have an assortment of interactive games and inflatables, such as the Sony Playstation display, Quad Bungee Trampoline, mechanical bull, Micro Reality Race Cars, a Giant Slide, the Elephant Belly Bouncer and many other exciting activities. To add to the fun, a master juggler, face painters, and balloon artists will be on hand to entertain throughout the day. This is truly a family event and we welcome kids of all ages at the Grand Prix.

The Budweiser Stage is being erected at JAGFlo Speedway at Reliant Park where it will host some great musical entertainment over the weekend. The headliner will be rock legend Paul Rodgers, who will take the stage at 8:00pm on Friday for a concert that will be free to all ticket holders (Gold Circle premium seating is also available for the concert). Rodgers is best known as the lead singer and front man for platinum-selling rock groups Bad Company, Free, and The Firm, and his Grammy Award winning career has included hits such as All Right Now, Feel like Makin’ Love, Can’t Get Enough (Of Your Love), Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy, Bad Company, and Shooting Star. The Eli Young Band will open for Rodgers at 6:30pm on Friday.

In addition to Paul Rodgers and Eli Young, we’ll have great local acts throughout the weekend including Mark May, the Handsomes, Gary Michael Dahl, Kelly McGuire, Steel Vibrations, the Eggmen, and Jeff Taylor. Then on Sunday, Texas legend Jerry Jeff Walker will kick off the pre-race ceremonies at 1:30 p.m. with a concert on the Winner Circle Stage. For the complete concert schedule at the Grand Prix click here.

We will also have a beach volleyball court set up within the track, with some of the best professional female volleyball players in the world competing during the Grand Prix. We are bringing in truckloads of sand and creating a mini-oasis where fans can enjoy a cold beverage and watch great EVP Tour volleyball during breaks in the racing action.

The Grand Prix Charities of Houston Go-Kart track is one of the most popular off-track attractions at the Grand Prix, and this year it will host a very exciting new event: The Celebrity Go-Kart Race, which will take place on Saturday April 21 from 2 – 4pm. Fans can watch celebrities such as Roger Clemens and KHOU’s Len Cannon compete against sponsors and some of the top racecar drivers from Champ Car and American Le Mans. During the rest of the Grand Prix weekend, fans can take a ride around the go-kart track on competition go-karts for $25, with all proceeds from the rides (and the Celebrity Race) benefiting great charities including United Cerebral Palsy and Hole in the Wall camps.

These attractions and much more will be taking shape at Reliant Park over the next few days as we get ready for the big event. When fans visit JAGFlo Speedway at Reliant Park this weekend for the Grand Prix, they will find that it is much more than a race: it is a Three-Day Festival of Speed and Entertainment!

Sunday, April 15

Volunteers are an important part of the Grand Prix

The Grand Prix of Houston has a great team of full-time staff members, but there is no way we could put on an event of this size without a bunch of help. To help us put on the Grand Prix and host the thousands of fans, race teams, and special guests that will join us over the three-day weekend, the Grand Prix depends on a group of more than 400 volunteers that devote their time and talents to the event. The volunteers and our staff were busy this weekend at three volunteer orientation sessions that took place at Reliant Arena.

Led by Volunteer Coordinator Ellen Eastham, volunteers perform a number of vital duties during the Grand Prix. Volunteers are organized into seven different groups: Track Services, Ushers, Hospitality, Information, Transportation, Ceremonies/Media, and Volunteer Services. From there, volunteers are further divided into sub-groups and assigned into specific areas. Team managers, co-managers, and team captains are assigned to help organize and lead each group of volunteers.

The Grand Prix staff is continually amazed at the level of dedication that our volunteers demonstrate. All volunteers work long hours over race weekend, in sometimes hectic and stressful conditions. Our volunteer managers, assistant managers, and team captains devote even more time throughout the year, for pre-event planning sessions, social outings, and individual area meetings. Also, volunteers in some areas such as Track Services are hard at work long before race weekend – these guys work several days a week for almost a month leading up to the race. The Grand Prix staff greatly appreciates the dedication and hard work of all of our volunteers!

The great thing about our volunteer base is that we have people from very diverse backgrounds coming together to accomplish common goals. Some of our volunteers are race fanatics; many of them are experiencing their first-ever motorsports event. We have volunteers from throughout the Houston area, and we also have people that are flying in from all over the world, including Ireland, Minnesota, Ohio, Canada, and California. Our volunteers are lawyers, carpenters, engineers, mechanics, nurses, executives, chefs, and every other imaginable profession, and we have people from a diverse number of backgrounds.

When you come out to JAGFlo Speedway at Reliant Park for the Grand Prix on April 20-22, you’ll see hundreds of smiling volunteers in the gray volunteer shirts. Please join me in thanking them for helping to make the Grand Prix of Houston possible!

April 11, 2007

Champ Car season kicks off on the streets of Las Vegas

Champ Car World Series

The Champ Car season opened last Sunday with the first annual Vegas Grand Prix.

The drivers and race teams of the Champ Car World Series will invade JAGFlo Speedway at Reliant Park in just over a week for the Grand Prix of Houston, but before they arrive in the Space City they have a busy schedule to start the season. The Champ Car season opened last Sunday with the first annual Vegas Grand Prix, an exciting race through the streets of downtown Las Vegas, and some of the Grand Prix of Houston staff members were there to witness the inaugural event.

The season started off with a somewhat surprising result, as second-year driver Will Power from the Aussie Vineyards team took the checkered flag from the pole for his first career victory. Newcomer Robert Doornbos took second and veteran Paul Tracy finished third.

The biggest surprise was what drivers were not on the victory podium. Last year’s top drivers Justin Wilson and Sebastien Bourdais and rookie sensation Graham Rahal all finished in the back of the pack after all three experienced mechanical trouble.

Almost as soon as the race ended, the Champ Car teams were quickly packing up their gear to head to Long Beach, California for the second race of the year this Sunday. The drivers will then head our way for the Grand Prix of Houston, which completes a busy back-to-back-to-back start for the 2007 Champ Car season.

Several Grand Prix staff members made the trip to Vegas with me over the weekend - General Manager Chuck Kosich, Director of Corporate Sales Michael Heckman, and Volunteer Coordinator Ellen Eastham represented the Grand Prix at the inaugural Vegas event. For fans the races are recreational, but for people in the motorsports business, the races are very important destinations because they represent a convergence of the motorsports world. Sponsors, media, series officials, race teams, and many other key contacts where all in attendance at the Vegas Grand Prix, and we were able to have many important meetings in preparation for our race.

The Grand Prix staff was also joined by several KHOU staff members, as producer Kent Kay and Nellie Gonzalez were in Vegas shooting footage for the upcoming Channel 11 Grand Prix special, which will air on Saturday, April 14 at 5 p.m. Nellie was able to interview a number of drivers including Sebastien Bourdais, Graham Rahal, and Katherine Legge, and she also spent some time with Champ Car co-owner Kevin Kalkhoven. It turned out Mr. Kalkhoven was the right guy to talk to -- he ended up getting Nellie a ride around the track in a two-seater!

This year is shaping up to be a very exciting one in Champ Car, and it was great to be in Las Vegas for the first race of the year. Champ Car is now off to Long Beach, California for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach this Sunday, April 15. Then they’re heading straight to JAGFlo Speedway at Reliant Park for the Grand Prix of Houston on April 20-22. If the start of the season is any indication, fans in Houston are in for a real treat!

April 9, 2007

Grand Prix Construction under way!

GRAND PRIX OF HOUSTON

Now that the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo has concluded, we are fast at work on construction for the Grand Prix of Houston, which takes place April 20-22. Over the next few weeks, we will transform Reliant Park into a world-class racetrack. It's called JAGFlo Speedway at Reliant Park (named for our track title sponsor JAG Flocomponents), where we will host some of the top racecar drivers in the world during our three-day event.

Over the next two weeks, more than 1,600 concrete blocks weighing 9,000 lbs will be put in place, four temporary bridges will be erected, 250 temporary restrooms will be installed, and 3.4 miles of fencing will be put up around the racetrack. Director of Operations Kyle Novak and VP of Operations Martyn Thake are working almost around the clock with their big crew in order to get everything ready for the Grand Prix.

The finished product will be a 1.7-mile temporary street course that should make for some very exciting racing during the Grand Prix. We will have 10 turns this year instead of nine, since we are adding a quick left-hander after the opening straightaway, designed to replace the temporary chicane that was added before last year’s race.

Our circuit will once again include the exciting turn five, a sweeping turn around the historic Reliant Astrodome. That turn will take the drivers into a short straightaway by Reliant Stadium, before two quick turns position the cars towards the finish line in front of Reliant Arena.

GRAND PRIX HOUSTON

The Grand Prix will be a three-day festival of speed, but our construction efforts go beyond just the racetrack. We’re building all kinds of exciting attractions including a beach volleyball court, the Budweiser concert stage, the Choice Homes Family Fun Zone, beer gardens, a competition go-kart track, and much more. We’re putting up grandstands around the racetrack, and corporate hospitality areas will accommodate the VIP guests in style. The paddock areas will once again be a major attraction, and for 2007 all paddocks will be located outside. The Champ Car paddock, which last year was located inside the Reliant Arena and required a separate ticket, has been moved outside and will be free of charge for all fans.

We have a lot of work to do, but we have some of the best people in the world working on this event so we’ll be ready when the gates open on April 20^th for the 2007 Grand Prix of Houston!