Beantown Strikes Final Blow To Boston Grand Prix

by Allan Brewer

The blame game has begun.

The city blames the promoters. The promoters blame the city. The Mayor blames the EPA, the property owners blame IndyCar. Everybody’s pointing fingers at the other guy in order to duck responsibility for a failed sporting venture.

The Grand Prix of Boston was nearly two years in the making. Boston Mayor Martin Walsh hinted at talks to hold the event on August 23, 2014 followed by a formal announcement of a Labor Day race in the Seaport district of the city nine months later in May of 2015.

It was all downhill from there, as residents of the South Bay took an opposing stand to the IndyCar race, on the grounds of noise, expense and inconvenience.

“The cars are too loud, they will upset my cat.”

“It’s a waste of money, and will tear up the streets. Who’s going to pay to fix them? The taxpayers, of course!”

“I won’t be able to move into my dorm at Harvard that weekend because the streets are closed to traffic. I’ll probably flunk out because of IndyCar.”

The flakes were coming out faster than a Christmas Eve snowstorm on the Back Bay.

Normally at this point saner heads emerge and eventually prevail. But in Boston, there are no sane heads anymore.

Ninety days after the race announcement, the governor of Massachusetts Charles Baker put the City of Boston on notice: no public funds will be spent on the event. Massport, the commonwealth’s regulatory body over transportation, chimed in with the same demand. The Convention Center, which owns land over which the IndyCars would transit at speed, began dragging its feet.

Finally, only six months ago, the promoters of the Grand Prix of Boston completely immunized the city and state of any fiscal liability including costs for construction, firemen, police, on-site security and other expenses.

If it sounds like the promoters were paying the bald—faced bribes the politicos wanted, it wouldn’t be far from the truth to say it.

In other words, the promoters bent over backwards to make the Grand Prix of Boston work.Documents show that, in total, the organizers put themselves on the line for over sixteen million dollars of potential expense just because they were committed to a race in Beantown.

So what did they get for their trouble?

It got them a potential lawsuit from the U.S. Environmental Protection Authority. The EPA claims the racecourse travels over a contaminated waste site. The Boston Conservation Commission says new climate change rules require the organizers to buy a “wetlands permit.”

And after almost two months of ticket sales, which were exceeding expectations, and additional corporate sponsorship from LogMeIn (a respected Boston-based software-maker known worldwide) the organizers of the Grand Prix of Boston were forced by a community and a commonwealth at war with joy to abandon their event.

One might well ask, “Why Boston anyway? They are known as effete snobs, living off Harvard’s reputation for excellence in scholastics, but in every other way a Pompei waiting for a Vesuvius?”

Pardon me if I don’t lose any tears over this one.

Not racing at Long Beach is worth tears. Boston is not.

No IndyCar in St Pete is depressing. Boston is not.

Enjoy your long weekend, Boston. Maybe you can and your cats can get some sleep.