LEILA FADEL, HOST:
America's 250th birthday celebrations continue this weekend in D.C. The IndyCar Series will race around the National Mall in the Freedom 250 Grand Prix. Qualifying is tomorrow. The main event is Sunday. NPR's Adam Bearne checked out the track.
ADAM BEARNE, BYLINE: An average day on the roads around the mall sounds like this.
(SOUNDBITE OF VEHICLE HONKING)
BEARNE: Tomorrow and Sunday, it'll sound like this.
(SOUNDBITE OF INDYCAR ENGINE ROARING)
BEARNE: That's driver Kyle Kirkwood ripping his IndyCar around Detroit back in May. It's one of the street circuits on the IndyCar championship schedule. They also race at road courses and on ovals, most famously for the Indy 500. There, the low-slung single-seater cars approach 250 miles an hour. Now, for the first time, the series is coming to the nation's capital.
Bud, good morning.
BUD DENKER: Adam.
BEARNE: It's nice to meet you.
DENKER: Nice to meet you as well.
BEARNE: Bud Denker is the chairman of the race. He's president of the Penske Corporation, which owns IndyCar.
DENKER: Our mission is to create the most amazing celebration for our country that we've seen.
BEARNE: The mall is focused around a roughly 2-mile-long rectangle that stretches from the Lincoln Memorial to the U.S. Capitol. Filled with monuments and museums, it's a complex web of city and federal property. On a drive around what will be the track, Denker tells me it's been a real challenge to figure out.
DENKER: No. 1, where you'd have a pit lane, where the cars come in and pit. And over here to our left on Pennsylvania Avenue, running parallel to the racetrack, is pit lane. And then where do you put the almost 100 transport trucks that service the race cars? And those trucks are going to be parked along Constitution Avenue.
BEARNE: An executive order from President Trump allows the event to use certain streets, and D.C.'s government's on board. But Denker couldn't get permission from Congress to use the grounds of the Capitol. The iconic building will still be a backdrop, though.
DENKER: So you have the view of the nation's Capital - cars going by on 3rd Street. You have the view of the Washington Monument for cars going by on 7th Street. It's just epic the views that we're going to see.
BEARNE: Also epic will be the speed when the cars get back on Pennsylvania Avenue.
DENKER: I think, legally, the speed limit here is between 25 and 30 miles an hour, right? For our race, it's unlimited. But because it's only six-tenths of a mile, our cars will only be doing about 180.
BEARNE: Only.
DENKER: Only.
BEARNE: Denker says the track's mix of long, fast straights and tight turns will give the drivers plenty of chances to pass the car in front. Longtime motorsports journalist Marshall Pruett isn't so sure.
MARSHALL PRUETT: It's only seven turns. Of all the non-ovals on the calendar this year in IndyCar, this has fewer turns than any other track - means there's far fewer opportunities per lap to try and overtake.
BEARNE: And it's a shorter track than most at 1.7 miles. To get to the finish line, drivers will have to complete 147 laps. Pruett reckons there'll be pressure on them from IndyCar not to have a big crash that could halt the race.
PRUETT: Go and compete hard, but if you make us look silly on what could be the biggest opportunity to introduce this series to brand new audiences that it has had in decades. Do not turn this into a clown show.
BEARNE: While it might be worth about $130 million, Pruett says IndyCar trails NASCAR and Formula 1 in popularity in the U.S.
(SOUNDBITE OF BEEPING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Clear.
BEARNE: Back on the Mall, the track is nearly finished. Walls and fences mark the outer edges of the circuit, and the grandstands are up for the 120,000 fans that are expected to attend for free each day. One thing spectators and the drivers might have to contend with - there's a chance of thunderstorms close to race time on Sunday afternoon.
Adam Bearne, NPR News, on the National Mall in Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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