In Review: Porscheplatz at the 2008 Belle Isle Grand Prix
Story and Photos by Dan Phillips
[Click on a photo to enlarge it.]
Additional Porscheplatz photos by Amber Door.
If you have not yet been to the Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix, you owe it to yourself to experience this event first-hand. It is big-time racing at its best, and your nearest opportunity to get up-close and personal with LeMans prototype and GT racing.
For an entire weekend each August, Belle Isle, an island in the Detroit River less than a mile from downtown, is converted from a public park into a world-class racing circuit. The beautiful park, with its tall, mature trees and waterfront location, creates a great setting for this event.
Part of the American LeMans series, the Saturday race showcases four classes of cars on the track at the same time: sophisticated LMP1 (like the Audi R10) and LMP2 cars (Porsche RS Spyder) compete for series points while lapping the extremely loud IMSA GT cars. Who wouldn’t want to see racing versions of some of the world’s best sports cars go toe-to-toe in a beautiful park-like setting? In the GT class, Corvettes, Vipers, Aston-Martins, Ford GTs, Porsche 911s, Ferrari F430s BMW M3s, and Panoz Esperante GTLM cars all duke it out for the top prize and series points.
What’s more, you can see the race in true Porsche style – and save money in the process – by purchasing the Porscheplatz ticket package. This was a great deal and great way for Porsche-philes to experience the race. The package includes a great grandstand seat, a paddock pass, concession-stand bucks (good even for beer!), and a parking pass for your Porsche in the Porsche Corral on the island itself. (Everybody else has to park off the island, which really sucks. For them.) Porsche has a large tent set up with tables and chairs, a big-screen TV, and free water and pop. More than anything, it’s a nice place in the shade to watch the race on TV while still hearing the ear-ripping exhaust notes just 100 yards away. This was a welcome relief to Porscheplatzers this year, with the scorching 90-something temperatures in the shade-less grandstands. The PCNA President and Porsche Racing executives were on hand to talk about the factory teams (Penske RS Spyders and Flying Lizard GT2 cars), and they answered all the fans’ questions. At the end of the day, you even get to do a parade lap – that’s you, driving your car, on the track. Slowly, but still way cool.
One and two day Porscheplatz packages are available at $80 and $150 per person respectively. This is a big savings over buying your tickets separately and parking off the island. How can you go wrong? This year, the 120-car Porscheplatz sold out about two days before the race. Next year will be even more popular. You don’t have to be a Porsche club member, but you do have to own a Porsche, or at least bring one to the race.
It is also very cool to be able to see the other car corrals adjacent to the Porshceplatz. Most of the manufacturers sponsoring cars were represented by fans in their own specially-arranged corral areas, including Ferrari (+Maserati), Audi, and the always popular Corvette corral. This year, the largest corral by far was for Dodge Vipers, as there was a Viper convention in Detroit the same weekend. Over 400 Vipers in one place is something to see. Not to mention the SMART car corral – odd, but cool.
IRL fans will love the weekend’s main event – the IndyCar race on Sunday. The Indy cars are by far the fastest cars of the weekend, and are a lot of fun to watch. There is also the tons-of-fun SCCA SPEED World Challenge GT race on Sunday, with modified street cars on hand to ratchet up the excitement. If you only come for the Saturday ALMS event, don’t worry – you can still witness Indy cars and the SCCA GT cars practicing and qualifying on Saturday. However you choose to enjoy it, it’s a weekend you won’t want to miss!
Learn more about this event at http://www.detroitgp.com/
