CART
For 1989, the race in Detroit was replaced by a CART event. Instead of moving the race, CART utilized a slightly modified version of the street circuit, eliminating the chicane on the main straight. The race was held on this 2.52-mile (4.06 km) layout for three years. Beginning in 1992, the race was moved to the previously planned temporary course on Belle Isle. The first layout measured 2.1 miles (3.4 km). After a subtle reconfiguration, and due to CART remeasuring all circuits in 1997, the track then measured 2.346 miles (3.776 km).
The event, along with the Michigan 500, provided two CART races in southern Michigan annually.
The 2000 event saw young Brazilian Hélio Castroneves score his first Champ Car victory for Marlboro Team Penske. After his victory lap, he stopped on the frontstretch and climbed the catch fencing in an apparent effort to share his joy with the spectators. Helio became known as "Spider-Man" because of this celebration, which has been repeated in his later victories.
From 1984–2001, the SCCA Trans-Am Series held a race in support of the Detroit Grand Prix. The Motor City 100 was often regarded as the most important event of the Trans Am schedule.
Read more about this topic: Detroit Indy Grand Prix
Famous quotes containing the word cart:
“If there is a cart ahead, there must be tracks behind.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Mrs. Zajac knows you didn’t try. You don’t just hand in junk to Mrs. Zajac. She’s been teaching an awful lot of years. She didn’t fall off the turnip cart yesterday. She told you she was an old-lady teacher.”
—Christine Zajac, U.S. fifth-grade teacher. As quoted in Among Schoolchildren, “September” section, part 1, by Tracy Kidder (1989)
“An Illinois woman has invented a portable house which can be carried about in a cart or expressed to the seashore. It has also folding furniture and a complete camping outfit.”
—Lydia Hoyt Farmer (1842–1903)