BELLE UNION, Ind. — Champ Car’s San Jose Grand Prix is history after a three-year run.
The latest blow to the struggling open-wheel formula is the termination of Champ Car World Series co-principal Kevin Kalkhoven’s dream in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Series and city officials announced Sept. 11 that the controversial downtown street race has been run for the last time, adding that Champ Car would reinstate its event at the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca road course about an hour to the south.
“We’re pleased that Champ Car will be able to maintain a strong event in northern California,” stated series president and CEO Steve Johnson. “We enjoyed three great years in San Jose and certainly anticipate that the fans there will head south to enjoy Champ Car racing at the beautiful Monterey Peninsula’s Mazda Raceway circuit.”
Laguna Seca hosted Champ Car races from 1983 to 2004 and at its peak in 1998, the event attracted a three-day attendance of 120,000. But as so many other tracks can attest, the open-wheel split of 1996 caused attendance to drop and corporate sponsorship to evaporate. The 2004 weekend drew only 35,000 fans.
The famous road course was perceived as too narrow for modern open-wheelers and some observers complained about no passing and follow-the-leader races. Laguna Seca still provided many memorable moments over the years, topped by Alex Zanardi’s unorthodox last lap pass of Bryan Herta at the Corkscrew turn for the victory in 1996.
“Needless to say, we are thrilled to announce during our 50th Anniversary season that Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca will once again host a Champ Car World Series event,” said track CEO/general manager Gill Campbell.
No date has been set for the Laguna Seca race, and Champ Car does not expect to release its 2008 schedule until late October.
“We have a gentlewoman’s agreement right now,” Campbell told the Monterey Herald. “This all has happened so quickly. There is a lot of work left to do.”
Champ Car staged its 2006 pre-season media day at Laguna Seca and a reported 3,000 fans came out to observe testing of the new Panoz DP01 chassis. The series has tentatively scheduled its 2008 pre-season media activities for the track from March 10-14.
From the moment he entered Champ Car racing as the co-owner of PK Racing, Kalkhoven had alternate ideas for the northern California market.
“I’d like to work toward having a Silicon Valley Grand Prix where I could bring some of my background and contacts together,” Kalkhoven remarked in January 2003. “There are a couple of airfields there – Moffett and a couple of others – and it would be neat to bring a race right to the heart of American technology.”
By the time he emerged as the driving force behind the entire Champ Car series after the CART bankruptcy, Kalkhoven took the idea a step further and brought the race to the streets of San Jose. It was a difficult struggle that, after three years, seems to have not been worthwhile.
The first running of the San Jose event was a disaster. The track was ill-conceived and was not ready on time. Cars were launched a foot in the air over railroad tracks and there was a dangerous lack of runoff area.
The event became a hot potato in local politics as lawmakers debated subsidizing the race to the tune of $4 million. Matters weren’t helped when it was learned that attendance figures provided by the San Jose GP had been padded by a factor of two.
San Jose organizers told Champ Car they believed development around the 1.5-mile street course would impact the future of the event.
“The reality of racing on a temporary street circuit is that change happens continuously and this is especially true in a dynamic and growing city center like downtown San Jose,” said SJGP president Dale Jantzen.
Portland, a 20-year market, is also in danger of being dropped by Champ Car due to a lack of fan and sponsor support. A date change from June is being considered to shake-up the event.
“Portland is not on or not off the schedule yet,” Johnson told the Portland Oregonian. “There are a lot of cities on the tentative schedule and not all of them are going to make it.”