At last weekend's Canadian GP in Montreal I talked at length with Leo Hindery about his plans to stage the Grand Prix of America F1 race in Weehawken, New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan. In October of 2011 Hindery announced his intentions to launch the race this year immediately following the Canadian GP but financial problems meant that was an optimistic hope.

There's been plenty of skepticism about Weehawken actually taking place and Hindery was in Montreal last weekend to tell everyone that the inaugural Weekawken race will be run next year, one week after the Canadian GP.

"We didn't have the capital investment in place to make it this year," Hindery said in Montreal. "We worked hard but we couldn't do it. But with tremendous gratitude on my part, Mr. Ecclestone and Charlie Whiting stuck with us. The burden was on me. The fault for not having the race this June was mine. We weren't ready and now we are and we're thrilled. We're going to race in June next year and every June thereafter following this wonderful event in Canada.

"We'll give the North American fan something special where Montreal and New York City are not many hours apart and you can come and experience two great North American cities. You can have the time of your life in Montreal with one form of tourism and come down south to New York and New Jersey and have a different experience."

Hindery made his fortune by investing in media companies across the United States. He founded his company InterMedia in 1988 and has invested in cable and broadcast television, print media and broadband. Hindery also founded the Yes network, broadcaster of New York Yankees games. He created Yes in 2001 and sold his interest in the enterprise in '08.

"My industry background is media in general," Hindery said. "We own sports channels and cable channels across the United States. I was fortunate enough to gain some prominence in cable television and when the technology continued to advance it took us to where we could contemplate channels that were near and dear and few in number to televise sports in a regional sense.

"It was one of my privileges to help start Regional Sports Networks, Yes being the network for the Yankees. I sold my interest in the Yes network a couple of years ago."

Hindery has also raced sports and GT cars, winning the GT class at Le Mans in 2005.

"I raced in the ALMS and Grand-Am, mostly ALMS," he said. "I did four Le Mans and won the GT class one year racing for the Porsche team. We won it in '05 and finished second in '03. My skills as a driver are a fraction of these fellows in Formula One, but it gives you an appreciation of the passion and commitment that's required."

Hindery's primary challenge in Weehawken has been finding the sponsorship and financial backing to make the race happen without any government support. In fact, Hindery will pay undisclosed fees to the cities of Weehawken and Hoboken and the state of New Jersey.

"It was important that at the end of the exercise the burden was on me," Hindery said. "It wasn't on Mr. Ecclestone, Charlie Whiting or anybody else. We had to make a commercially viable race and we're not a sovereign nation. We follow different rules [than most other F1 races.] We had to satisfy as best we could at the highest level, sponsors, drivers, teams and fans.

"We had hoped that we would be racing this year. One of the commitments we made early on that we've kept is we've not gotten any money from any municipality or state. We've never asked for it and we'll never take it. We believe that in these difficult financial times that municipal or state governments shouldn't be paying for this. They shouldn't do it and they won't do it. It's bad politics and it's also bad ethics.

"The challenges have largely been met. They were high. It wasn't the configuration of the course. It was keeping the promise to the municipalities and the state that we could put together a longterm, multi-year commercial enterprise and bring them value as opposed to doing it with government support like so many other F1 races.

"This has been a difficult time throughout Europe and North America and I underestimated the challenge of financing the enterprise and making it profitable for the municipalities. We're actually paying for the privilege. We're going to pay the cities of Weehawken and Hoboken and the state of New Jersey."

Hindery says he feels a great responsibility to Bernie Ecclestone, Charlie Whiting and Herman Tilke's partner Peter Wahl who have been unwavering in their support of Weehawken.

"This race was born as a labor of love and I think it'll stay that way," Hindery remarked. "If you really look around, it's probably the last big thing Charlie, Mr. Ecclestone, myself and Peter Wahl are going to do. The sport has wanted to be in New York City so it was born out of this partnership between the four of us. We had to lift the heaviest load for sure.

"I view it more as a responsibility. I think at this late date in my career, which has been a really fun career in the media industry, I work for two people, Chariie Whiting and Bernie Ecclestone, and you take that very seriously. We will not disappoint Mr. Ecclestone or Charlie, so it makes you nervous. We're not anxious, but we're nervous, and one year from now we'll get a report card."

Hindery believes the Weehawken street circuit will provide a serious challenge for the drivers and teams as well as good spectating for the fans.

"Serendipity gave us the site," he observed. "We've got a lot of elevation changes, nineteen turns, lots of passing opportunities. When Sebastien Vettel came to New York last year he took a street Infiniti around the course with none of our embellishments and said it races like Spa and looks like Monaco, and I think that's what we wanted to accomplish. I think, as Vettel said, it will give you a perfect race.

"The racetrack runs alongside the river and then shoots up what is called the Pallisades, which is an amazing natural cliff formation formed naturally in the millenia. If you talk to the drivers and the teams they want to see elevation change. My best lines I steal from somebody else and when Sebastien Vettel said it raced like Spa and look like Monaco, I cloned it immediately.

"Having raced in Europe, the three tracks I'd compare it to are Le Mans, which has its own elevation change near Indianapolis, and then the Ring and Spa. If you can give the fans the entertainment phenomenon of Hoboken and New Jersey and New York City and couple that with a young driver like Vettel saying it races like Spa and looks like Monaco then I think Bernie and Peter Wahl and I will feel like we've pulled it off.

"The other thing is we're seven minutes from mid-town Manhattan on the ferry. If you drew a line from 58th Street in Manhattan you'd hit our start/finish line. About half, maybe more, of the men and women who come to our race will come by ferry."

Recently it was announced that Long Beach GP founder Chris Pook has been hired to oversee construction of Weehawken's street circuit.

"Chris Pook is a huge addition," Hindery said. "He's a very dear friend of Bernie's, which is a huge plus in general. He also knows more about street racing than anybody in the sport."

Hindery has also hired Marty Hunt to run his race operations. Hunt worked in a similar position over the past year for Austin's Circuit of the Americas and previously worked at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway running the Speedway's road circuit operations.

"Marty Hunt, who was director of race operations in Austin, will leave Austin and have a similar role for us," Hindery said. "He already distinguished himself when he brought Formula One to Indy. He was the guy behind Tony George's effort."

Hindery says he hopes to build a strong fan base for his race and expand F1's Amierca's TV audience.

"There are probably 50,000-60,000 women and men as possible attendants for our race who know the sport well and we want about twice that number to show up. New York's appeal is it's a youthful audience that's into technology and know that F1 isn't NASCAR. The responsibility we have primarily to Mr. Ecclestone is to give him a fan base in America that mirrors that in Europe.

"Young guys in France, Germany, the UK and Italy grow up as fans of racing with a technology orientation and tremendous loyalty to the teams and the drivers. We don't have that in NASCAR and it's our responsibility to build that level of interest. We're optimistic that can happen."

Hindery believes F1's new domestic TV partnership with NBC will also help build America's following for F1.

"What a gift it is to have NBC televising F1 today," he said. "They are headquartered in New York and they can throw a baseball to Weehawken from their offices in Manhattan. They did such an amazing job on the Monaco race and I'm sure they'll continue to go from strength to strength in their coverage. We're expecting amazing things from them."

Hindery reflected on how difficult it was to follow F1 in America when he was a youth.

"As a young man I used to try to scrounge a buck to buy a Road & Track. I would read about Jim Clark. I never saw Jim Clark except in the Wide World of Sports on ABC where they would give us a snippet of Monaco. When Jim Clark was racing against Jackie Stewart I got about six laps of it on TV. I never had a chance to see it live, so it was hard to be an F1 fan in the United States."

Hindery believes his own knowledge of the television business and NBC's new commitment to F1 will help make F1 an important player in the American sports market.

"With some of the things we've done in sports television and with the wonderful friendships we have with NBC and with Bernie Ecclestone's support we can maybe help this sport really dominate in US television. That's what it needs."

I tried without success to get Bernie Ecclestone to confirm that he has a deal with Hindery.

"Bernie prefers not to speak until he has everything confirmed," said his right hand man Pasquale Lattuneddue.

We should soon find out whether or not Hindery's optimism that his race in New Jersey will take place twelve months from now is well founded. If it happens and is able to succeed financially, it is sure to provide a healthy boost for F1 in America.

Auto Racing ~ Gordon Kirby
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