US GP in Austin Discussion and Speculation...

The Bushes. A great Massachusetts family.

 

i thought they were from texachussetts

 

Taxachusetts. Ask SRT Mike

 

And born with a silver foot in ya mouth...

 

Beter than the silver boot you were born with up your....

 

LOL .... I can't find anything to post in this thread so...

 

When has that ever stopped you?
Mayhaps you can tell your American cousins about the Donnington saga. A cautionary tale for those looking to work with dear Bernard.

 

Tavo gets a CNN interview and has nothing concrete to show. Did anyone find that piece reassuring?

 

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s-dMQHk5Rw[/ame]

Taken from the facebook F1 friends site, or whatever the group is. Lots of equipment out there

 

I guess the 1 guy working a couple days ago called out sick...

Ben, seriously,... have you ever been on a real construction site? That video is pathetic.

 

The worker wasn't sick,he just finished making the concrete form

It did look kind of like a bit of a ghost town. They seemed to have lots of equipment though, and in the background there were lots of big tubes. Also, the number of temporary buildings has gone up.

 

What we have here is Kremlinology Texas style.

 

you eluding to the possibilty of the equipment being inflatable mock-ups in order to decieve

 

No. I'm referring to the practice of trying to understand an opaque operation by way of tangential clues.
You're thinking of what the Allies did in the run up to D-Day.

 

Maybe the money is there, and they're trying to hold out for as long as possible on starting the permanent structures, in hopes that the local municipality can get the special tax funding passed to pay for the local road improvements. (only thing preventing building permit being approved is the road improvements?)

I know it's been brought up before, that $5 MM is peanuts in a $400 MM project so they should just go ahead and pay it now.

Just a theory. maybe a bit overly optimistic, and not seeing the forest for the trees, but plausable

 

Not really. Lets pay $40M overtime to save $5M. Not a great idea. Ben, they don't have the money.

 

If it does fail you have a future reading tea leaves

 

True. I just don't get the logic behind spending at least $20M or so, this far, and not have a plan to follow it through. Doesn't make any sense at all to me. Looking at that video today, it seems like the county would have a hell of a time using the ~800k performance bond to put the land back to the way it was...

 

I suspect that very little money is lost at this point.

I would wager that Red bought the land, which he gets to keep if this thing fails.

The largest sum spent and gone was likely to Tilke. Other than that... it's a few lawyers, a sign, some computer graphics, renting a dozen pieces of heavy equipment and from what we've seen,... hiring 5 hard hats.

I doubt they are in to this for more than $10M at this point.

 

While this is likely true, the cash burn rate will need to accelerate in a big way very soon.

 

So far they remind me of most underfunded startups with a big idea, keeping things on simmer until they land the marlin.

 

+1

 

Waitin' on Slim to pull out that wad he uses to light his ceegars with....grab it before too much burns and they will have anough dough to finish the track!

This track is just one heavy hitting sugar daddy away from yielding the sounds we all love.....

 

SO be it. What is he waiting for. Maybe he wants a track in Mexico instead?? Watching and learning from this very slow moving elephant. The buzz I felt for this event has very much gone away with the lack of data and progress in Austin. A NY street race is what Bernie really wants. A show in a big glamorous city. Impact and visual appeal. Just take a look at Singapore.

If there was a savior for an event guaranteed to lose money he would have shown up by now. I think the race will happen. It wont happen on time and with the history of F1 in the US, it wont stay long in Texas.

 

If they don't finish in time they can run the race in a local Wal-Mart parking lot a la Caesar's Palace.