Austin is known for many things, its been deemed (arguably mind you)"the live music capitol of the world", "the greenest city in America", one of the "top three hippest cities in the US", and "least stressful large Metro city". We have not however been known for being the "best place to race your expensive ass $3,431,000 car".
Amongst the reasons cited for picking Austin are it's ideal geographic location, beauty, transportation infrastructure (do they have the right "Austin"??) and our growing popularity as one of the country's "it" cities. Everyone from the governor, to the mayor and state comptroller (the one who actually signed the contract) seems to agree that this is a good thing for Austin. While never really being into Nascar, I have always found Formula 1 a little more intriguing. If anything because of the exotic locales they use, the millionaire-sorry-billionaire playboys and corporations participating, and the race track is so much more intense. If you're gunna sit in the crowd, better start boning up on your Top Gear episodes so you can at least pretend to know what your talking about if you bump into Sir Richard Branson. -S.DeBose