After taking a ton of criticism during last year’s inaugural San Jose Grand Prix, a lot of work was done to make this year’s event a better experience for both the fans and the drivers.
A wider track to allow drivers to pass, extra viewing areas and overpasses for fans to get around more easily and having local boy A.J. Allmendinger come into the race about as hot as the recent California heat wave didn’t hurt either.
With the dust now settled on Year 2 of the event, the event organizers are getting a big thumps up.
“They were perfect, they did everything that they could,” said Allmendinger, who battled through an early crash and a miscommunication to finish seventh Sunday after not finishing the race – like many drivers – last year.
“It’s still a tight race track, maybe a couple spots need to be wider. They wanted passing, hopefully that’s what I gave them because I passed a lot of guys,” Allmendinger said.
Morgan Hill native Jimmy Vasser, who also failed to finish last year’s race and watched this year’s race from the pits as part owner of PKV Racing, shared positive words.
“All in all, I think it was a great weekend for San Jose and Champ Car,” Vasser said.
Before the race, Vasser said he hopes the city would be willing to sacrifice an extra block or two in the future to lengthen to the short 1.448-mile track.
While something to that nature could likely improve the conditions for the drivers, Allmendinger said the course provided enough to make for good competition.
“Last year, you knew you had no chance to pass,” he said. “You still had to force the pass (this year), but how many guys did I pass out there? So there’s enough room to pass obviously.”
Garland Self, a Morgan Hill resident who took second in the Historic Stock Car Racing Series event, was also pleased with the improvements, but hopes that a little more attention be directed toward the historic racing events.
“We had a great weekend. San Jose racing fans were great. The people who walked through here were great. It was a good time,” Self said.
“I think that the event organizers need to allocate more time to the stock cars,” Self added. “They need to publicize it more. The fans that are walking through are saying, ‘We didn’t know you were here.'”
The weekend provided a lot more than just racing, including a golf tournament, street festival and the Driver VIP Party that I was lucky enough to attend Friday night.
The main event at the VIP Party was the unveiling of the 2007 Panoz DP01 Champ Car, which will serve as the exclusive chassis of the Champ Car World Series in 2007 and will be the first American-built chassis to compete in the series since 2000.
I’m usually not much for a big fancy party, but any time you leave an event and have Paul Newman exiting right behind you, you can’t really complain.
And forget any crashes during the racing. The scariest moment I saw all weekend was Newman walking out of the party’s gate and continuing right into traffic on a busy Santa Clara Street before he was alerted to hold up.
While improvements are probably still needed at the event (a walk from Point A to Point B can take you a half-hour and send you up, down and around half the downtown area), the Grand Prix looks like a keeper.
“I think (the organizers) did a good job all weekend,” Self said. “It seemed like they were continually working on things to improve. I didn’t see a large crowd of people going over bridges. I didn’t see the backup like we had last year. So they did a heck of a job with that.”
