20 Years Ago Today...
US met UK at Rockingham with Reynard on top. What went wrong?
In the early 2000s, Formula One was in trouble. Although it reached out to new host nations, interest in Europe was waning as Michael Schumacher and Ferrari made nearly every race win a foregone conclusion. However, not far from Silverstone, something was brewing. The new Rockingham Motor Speedway was a 1.5-mile banked oval, built to attract top-level motor sport from the USA. CAR’S October 2001 issue looked forward to the Rockingham 500, the first-ever
British round of the Champ Car series. What most of the world called Indycar (ignoring trademark legislation) was about to go international.
Writer Anthony ffrench-constant welcomed it. ‘At a time when the best entertainment F1 has to offer is the pitlane bickering of a fistful of sullen, haughty multi-millionaires who are too busy leafing through Learjet catalogues to do anything as demeaning as talk to the public, the news that the fan-friendly CART mob will be banging wheels around Rockingham is a tonic indeed for those who like their racing rather more gladiatorial than processional.’
Early omens looked bad. Manager David Grace had to battle with Northamptonshire council to get an attendance limit overturned. A few weeks before the first international race the 9/11 attacks closed US airspace, threatening to trap many of the teams on the opposite side of the Atlantic. On the morning of the race, practice was cut short by flooding rainwater on the track.
But it all came good in the end. British hope Dario Franchitti qualified second on the grid, and Reynard’s Gil de Ferran won a nailbiter which saw the lead change several times. Rockingham proved itself to be a challenging addition to the calendar. De Ferran likened it to the uninhibited, chicanefree Silverstone of old. The next year, Franchitti won the Rockingham 500 in front of an adoring home crowd and over 60 million TV viewers.
Unfortunately, things were less rosy for Rockingham. Poor drainage plus two rain-affected races caused the 2003 UK Champ Car round to shift to Brands Hatch. Rockingham struggled to recoup its losses, and after 2002 it only hosted British championships, on a twisty reconfigurable circuit. ‘We have to accept that it won’t be a success overnight,’ said Grace, ahead of the 2001 Rockingham 500. ‘I tell my staff that the Colosseum probably wasn’t that popular in its first year.’
Sadly, after years of losses, Rockingham fell into administration in 2018. It’s now an automotive industry testing and logistics hub. At 17 years it wasn’t quite the shortest-lived British race circuit, but the sheerness of its fall from grace still makes us wince today.