Laguna seca is far too short and narrow. Sebring would be good but could be a bit bumpy. Road Atlanta and Road America would work very well however imo
My apologies to tomcat606 for starting this thread, rather than adding this new development to his existing one from August. However, at the time of writing, I'd completely overlooked (forgotten) the old article.
Having looked into this a little more deeply, I am beginning to see things from a more neutral standpoint. Commitments mean that I make regular trips to the USA and I have experienced contractual difficulties of a similar nature, albeit on a far smaller scale. So if anything, I am beginning to sympathise with Bernie - who appears to have made quite reasonable requests/demands for guarantees. It seems the Texas state government issued a statement saying that the $25m reserved for paying the sanctioning fee to Ecclestone (FOM) would not be paid until after the first race. And we all know that selling a product before receiving payment is just not the way Bernie operates. Circuit of Americas (Cota) said they had not received a contract; but Ecclestone said no contract had been issued because he had not received a written guarantee that he would be paid; which I must say appears reasonable to me. The difficulty appears to have come about due to a claim that the original promoter (Tavo Hellmund and his Full Throttle Promotions Company) was in breach of contract, leading to a cancellation of that contract. It appears that the Circuit of Americas (CotA) company then took over from Full Throttle, saying they had difficulties with Hellmund, to which Ecclestone responded that they needed to sort out their respective contractual disagreements: According to the Press Association, Ecclestone said: "We had an agreement with Full Throttle Productions. Everything was signed and sealed, but we kept putting things off like the dates, various letters of credit and things that should have been sent, but nothing ever happened. Then these other people (Cota) came on the scene, saying that they wanted to do things, but that they had problems with Tavo. They said they had the circuit, and that they wanted an agreement with me. I told them they had to sort out the contract with Tavo, which they said they would. But that has gone away now because we've cancelled Tavo's contract as he was in breach. We've waited six months for him to remedy the breach. He knows full well why we've cancelled. He's happy. But these other people haven't got a contract. All we've asked them to do is get us a letter of credit. We are looking for security for money they are going to have to pay us. That is via a letter of credit, normally from a bank. If people don't have the money they find it difficult to get the letter of credit, and so we don't issue a contract." It seems likely that the announcement of a second race in the USA for 2013 (New Jersey) made it less appealing for Texas to fund the Austin event, due to the perceived negative impact this will have upon spectators for the Austin race. So, 'Mexican stand-off' it is! It will be interesting to see if this can be sorted out before the 7th December deadline, because I am now quite certain Bernie is not bluffing.
Cosi m8, Sympathize with Bernie? Seriously? He's bleeding the sport dry of cash. He allegedly hands out bigger sums of money to keep people quiet than some teams have to operate on annually, and while both teams and circuits struggle to make ends meet, he's amazingly rolling in billions of dollars. Doesn't care about teams, venues or the viewing public... he just cares about his own pocket book in my opinion.
I'm not sympathising with him in general Bhaji. Anyone who has known me on a forum over the years will know that I have been a staunch critic of what I perceive to be his manipulative dealings for many years, and anyone who knows me externally to a forum will know this goes back to days long before the internet existed! However, I believe each situation should be judged on merit; and in this case, I am softening towards seeing that Bernie may have a reasonable point or two in this particular instance. Just as I do not care for Schumacher in general but acknowledge he has had the odd superb performance, my last contribution (above) relates to the particulars of the Austin, Texas venue/potential event alone. I am well aware of the criticisms levelled at Ecclestone, many of which I feel are valid; but don't mistake my position as relating to anything other than the Austin venue!
Good... I may have had to slap you with some kind of fish product! I still think that despite what is said/done, we can at least be reasonably sure that Mr. E will be thoroughly looking after his own interests and cutting no slack... in usual form. The warm, kind hearted little munchkin. ;p
I am relieved to have escaped a fishy slap from the Sgt. And I also agree that Ecclestone will be looking after his own interests, regardless of the particular merits of this case. He is a very shrewd man and will not lose out to the rather simplistic idealism - which lacks a certain 'nous' - of the Deep South; it having a tendency to spill over into Texas from Louisiana. Thanks for the support Bergy. I can only hope that you're right…
Ah but I like surprises! They happen quite regularly now: for instance I often remember where my house is and sometimes even surprise myself with using the front door key - on the rare occasions I've remembered to lock it in the first place…
Cosicave is right in that these are complicated and unless you know all the detail, it's hard to judge who's at fault. However, funny this cropped up within weeks [or was it days] of the New Jersey race hoving into view........... I don't remember any negative comment from Ecclestone about Austin prior to that, so either he's been keeping a long running problem in Texas quiet rather than dealing with it up front or he's a conniving little git. You choose.
