It was June 1986, and the best Formula 1 drivers in the world were speeding through downtown Detroit, zipping past skyscrapers along the Detroit River. Then, they began dropping like flies. Electrical issues, steering, engine, transmission. One after another, their finely-tuned machines succumbed to the worn and neglected streets of the Motor City.
Detroit’s civic leaders watched the carnage from the high-rises above. Mayor Coleman A. Young hosted city officials at his annual Grand Prix soirée, and Governor James Blanchard entertained executives from abroad, hoping to lure international business to the Great Lakes state.
Down below, the 26-year-old Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna had taken the lead, and his countryman Nelson Piquet was in pursuit. On one turn, where the road had begun to break up, Piquet misjudged an apex and spun into a wall. His car disabled, he abandoned it, leaving it sitting there on the track.
It was up to the race marshals, then, a group of volunteer workers, to dispose of the car. They had a crane nearby for such situations. But on that day, the crane malfunctioned. They tried pulling the car using ropes, and moved it as far as the edge of the wall. They asked their supervisor for a tow truck — but for some reason, he said no. “It was not an ideal situation, but the cars could get by (Piquet’s car) safely,” the clerk of the course would later explain.
Now Piquet’s car was essentially another obstacle on the course.
The marshals showed the yellow caution flag for a few laps, alerting the other drivers to the car. But then … they stopped. If they had kept showing the flag, the thinking went, the drivers might think there had been another accident.
Soon, the Frenchman René Arnoux crashed on that same turn. There would be conflicting reports about what happened: that Arnoux swerved to avoid the stationary car, he clipped the car itself, or that he slid at the turn, just like Piquet had, and fell victim to the course. Whatever the case, it wasn’t a great look for Detroit.
The city hosted a Formula 1 Grand Prix for seven years, from 1982 to 1988. On its face, it made sense: America’s Motor City putting on a premiere race. But by the ’80s, the auto industry was in a downturn and Detroit was struggling. Its streets weren’t exactly in tiptop shape. City leaders viewed the race as a way to rehabilitate its image, to show the world that Detroit was OK. On TV, the city looked beautiful, the cars racing by the water against the skyline, tens of thousands of people lining the track. If you squinted, the images looked a bit like Monaco.
Reality was more complicated. Formula 1 drivers hated the course, and unemployed Detroiters found the whole thing snobbish. It created an uncomfortable juxtaposition, as one out-of-town journalist observed: “What could be more ludicrous than having a bunch of French, English and Italian cars — driven by Europeans and South Americans — racing through downtown Detroit, the depressed and depressing center of what’s left of the American motor-car industry?”
At one point during the 1986 race, as Senna passed Piquet’s disabled car, he reportedly showed a volunteer marshal his middle finger. “In the future, for God’s sake, stop the race when something like that happens,” Senna said afterward. “It was very dangerous. There were suddenly no flags and we thought ‘Ah, the car is gone,’ but it was still there.”
Senna ended up cruising to an easy win, by more than 30 seconds, his first Formula 1 victory on U.S. soil. It helped that his main competition had crashed out. Only nine other drivers were still driving at that point. The other 15 had retired.
The previous year in Detroit, Senna had criticized the marshals for not showing enough yellow flags. Some had shown up in 1986 wearing buttons that read, “Senna Who?” A reporter interviewed the marshal Senna had flipped off, and she noted the difference between the drivers’ multi-million-dollar salaries and her own, as a volunteer working this world-class race.
“We’re lucky if we get three beers and sandwiches,” she said.
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Once upon a time, people referred to Detroit as “the Paris of the Midwest.” The city was founded by French settlers in the 1700s, had lots of French influence, and possessed a certain je ne sais quoi. In the 20th century, Detroit became an economic hub thanks to the rise of the auto industry and the birth of The Big Three (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler), the Model T, and the assembly line. People flocked there for work. By 1950, Detroit had a population of about 1.85 million, making it the fifth-largest city in the U.S.
But as Detroit grew, so did racial tensions. The city had an increasing Black population, and as it became less segregated, lots of white people headed for the suburbs.
In the summer of 1967, amid a heat wave, it all boiled over. The local police raided an unlicensed bar in a predominantly Black neighborhood. People crowded around, and someone threw a brick through a police car window. Chaos ensued, the cops responded with force — and it sparked five days of race riots across the city. There were break-ins, sniper fire, buildings set aflame. Eventually, the Michigan National Guard and U.S. Army were sent in. More than 40 people died, hundreds were injured, and thousands arrested. The Detroit Historical Society called it the “largest civil disturbance” of 20th-century America.
In the aftermath, in 1970, some of Detroit’s most powerful figures came together and formed Detroit Renaissance, a non-profit organization whose mission was to revitalize the city. Its board included executives from “virtually every large corporation in the Detroit area,” according to The Detroit Free Press.
Now, the group needed a leader. It targeted Robert McCabe. He’d grown up in Michigan, studied at the University of Chicago, and was a leader in the field of urban planning. He was working for the state of New York when Detroit Renaissance approached him with a job offer. As part of the pitch, McCabe said, one Detroit Renaissance leader told him he “owed it to Detroit (to take the job) because I came from here and I’m a Michiganian.” He came on board.
In time, Detroit Renaissance started to remake the downtown area. It helped create housing, renovate the Music Hall, and open the Detroit Science Center. It led the effort on the $350-million Renaissance Center (aka the RenCen), a group of skyscrapers that would come to define the city’s skyline. Detroit began hosting events: the Republican National Convention in 1980, the Super Bowl in 1982. McCabe also created an annual jazz festival, in collaboration with the famous Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. He started to see the effect that a major event could have on the city’s national reputation.
Around that time, Bernie Ecclestone, the leader of Formula 1, was looking for new ways to expand his sport in the United States. A Detroit Renaissance advisor knew Ecclestone and facilitated a conversation. The two sides hammered out a deal. Formula 1 would come to Detroit in 1982, and Detroit Renaissance would foot the bill. “Detroit needs a shot in the arm psychologically,” McCabe said. “The people need some excitement. Why not a glamorous auto race? After all, this is the auto capital of the world. What could be more appropriate?”
But when Formula 1 arrived, the auto industry was collapsing and Detroit was in a deep recession. Unemployment had reached more than 15 percent in Michigan. Detroit was in such rough shape, its residents had to go without some basic civic amenities. The police and fire departments were understaffed. The streets had potholes. The garbage collection service lagged behind. Sometimes it took three weeks, or more, for trash to be collected.
When race organizers started building the temporary grand prix track downtown, Detroiters complained that the barricades disrupted traffic. The tickets were too expensive, the cars too noisy. On a skyscraper someone hung a giant sign: Buy American Made Cars. Some locals derided the Grand Prix as … The Grand Mistake.
“They’d better get some out-of-towners in here ’cause it’s damn sure nobody in Detroit can afford to go,” one unemployed auto worker told The Los Angeles Times before the first race. “I’d like to know what in the hell they’re thinking about, bringing in all these fancy dudes with their cars nobody here ever heard of, and all they talk about is their fancy parties. Me, I’d just like a cold beer and a paycheck.”
Many Detroiters were intrigued enough to make their way downtown for race weekend, to see what all the fuss was about. And what did they find? Thousands of people, from all over the world, speaking all kinds of languages, had descended upon their city. The hotels were busy, the restaurants buzzing. Some had come for the racing, others just to people-watch.
All week there were parties, ranging from casual to ultra-chic. That first year, McCabe and Henry Ford II, the former CEO of Ford, hosted a race watch party on the RenCen heliport. The entry fee? $3,500. (About $11,500 in today’s dollars.) Over the years, Mayor Coleman threw one of the better parties, atop the Veterans Memorial Building, where guests received champagne and a buffet. “God knows, times are tough,” the mayor said, “but it doesn’t hurt us to have a little fun once ’n awhile, too.”
The local papers covered the parties breathlessly: the food, the guest lists, the fashion. One grand prix official griped, anonymously, to the Free Press, “The official champagne of the Detroit Grand Prix is Moet et Chandon. There is an umlaut over the ‘e’ in Moet, but local newspapers don’t have any umlauts, so readers aren’t being told the proper way to pronounce Moet.” Some took to calling McCabe, “Champagne Bob.”
Detroit may have never looked better than on a race day. The course was lined with people of all stripes, boats dotting the waterfront, everyone craning for a better view. About 200,000 people reportedly showed up for the 1985 weekend. More than 250,000 in 1986. One CBS announcer compared the scene to Mardi Gras. “This is awesome. The excitement, the beer, the women, it’s definitely the place to be,” a 21-year-old told the Free Press. One year, race-goers spotted a couple on top of a skyscraper: they were nude and fornicating as the cars flew by.
The media constantly pressed McCabe: how much did the race cost? Was it making money? He wouldn’t reveal much. Eventually, reporters found Detroit Renaissance lost more than $1 million combined on the first two races, and was struggling to turn a profit. (The annual budget for the race was about $5 million.) “We’re not in the racing business,” McCabe said, “we’re in the community-building business.”
A few years in, McCabe estimated that each race had a $12 million economic impact on the city. By 1987, he placed that number around $20 to $25 million. “I remember six years ago when so many people were opposed to the race,” McCabe said.
“This race is a part of Detroit now,” he added.
Commemorative covers at the 1986 Detroit Grand Prix display images of the RenCen skyscrapers behind an F1 car.
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Mayor Coleman A. Young (center) drives off the assembly line at Cadillac’s Clark Street factory in the last Cadillac convertible: the 1976 Fleetwood Eldorado.
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The race drew massive crowds to downtown Detroit.
More than 250,000 fans showed up in 1986.
Detroit was learning, though, that it’s difficult to put on a Formula 1 Grand Prix. The first year, race officials cancelled the first practice session after drivers raised concerns about course safety. The track hadn’t been finished yet, anyway. The day before, workers had also gone through a practice exercise in the event that a car jumped a fence and ended up in the river. They plopped a car into the water and simulated a rescue mission. “It took 5 ½ minutes to get the car out of the water,” according to one newspaper account, “and then a rope broke and the car sank to the bottom again.”
The race ran through downtown Detroit, next to the Detroit River. Two-point-five miles, 20 turns, some 90-degree hairpins. McCabe compared the layout to Monaco, another street course that featured a long straightaway along a waterfront.
But this wasn’t exactly Monaco. The drivers complained about the course to no end. They didn’t like the manhole covers that made the ride bumpy. The course didn’t have enough escape routes on the straightaways. If the drivers lost their brakes, they had nowhere to go. It did have one thing in common with Monaco though: it was nearly impossible to pass.
“The cars are working hard all the time,” said Piquet, the Brazilian driver. “With the short straightaways it is hard for them to cool down because you are constantly braking and accelerating.” It was very easy, he noted, “to make a mistake and go into a wall.” All those turns slowed the driving down, too. The first year, the winner averaged 78.2 mph, a speed that “would be laughed at on Woodward between Six and Eight Mile Roads,” someone wrote in a letter to the Free Press. It was the slowest race on the circuit that season.
The streets were another issue. Before the first race, the city spent about $800,000 to repave the roads on the course route, using taxpayers’ money. The city would repave the streets again, at least for portions of the course. But due to a number of factors — the force generated by Formula 1 cars, the wear and tear from hosting other races, the summer heat — the asphalt would often break up and deteriorate. Parts of the road, one writer observed, would become “loose with gravel and pebbles.”
Add all of this up: it became common to not finish the race. A race field in the 1980s usually included 26 cars. In Detroit, maybe a dozen of them would survive the course. One year, there were only six — and one driver was later disqualified. It was less a race than a war of attrition.
“It’s too bumpy, too narrow, has too many surface changes, too many manhole covers and too many dangerous corners,” said Alain Prost, the French driver. “It’s just a lousy course.”
In 1985, the Finnish driver Keke Rosberg was leading the pack when he noticed the car’s temperature rising. He radioed his pit crew, who confirmed: his radiator was full of paper, blown in from the grandstands. “There was so much rubbish on the track,” Rosberg later said. But the racing was so uneven, he managed to stop, have the paper removed, and still win by almost a full minute.
Three of his challengers, including Senna, had bowed out at the same turn, where the surface was, according to one writer, “suffering from a terminal case of potholes.”
The Italian driver Michele Alboreto once said it was “unprofessional and stupid to think [Detroit] could be called a Formula One course.” And he won the Detroit Grand Prix in 1983.
By 1988, the Detroit Grand Prix’s future was in doubt. McCabe needed to work out a new deal with Ecclestone, the head of Formula 1, to keep the race in Detroit. But Ecclestone had demands. Detroit was one of a handful of temporary courses on the circuit, and its garage was located far away from the pits. Ecclestone wanted the city to build a permanent garage and pit complex, on par with other top courses. He also asked for control towers, repaved streets, and new fencing.
In all, it would have cost Detroit Renaissance $12 million to stage the next Detroit Grand Prix, up from $5 million in a typical year, and the race had never exactly been a cash cow.
McCabe balked at Ecclestone’s requests, and the negotiations fell apart.
Formula 1 released a statement, saying it would not race in Detroit going forward because race organizers failed to meet safety standards. “We are sorry to arrive at this decision,” said the sport’s secretary-general, “but in safety matters there can be no compromise.”
“Safety considerations had nothing to do with it,” McCabe said at his own press conference. He listed Ecclestone’s demands. “All their safety requirements had been met. Naturally, we would not want to run an unsafe race.”
Mayor Young chimed in: “I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. Bob is being polite. The real reason is money and those guys are greedy.”
With Formula 1 out, McCabe pivoted quickly. He signed a contract with CART, another open-wheel series, headquartered in suburban Michigan. The swap was heralded in the press: Detroit had never embraced those elitist Formula 1 drivers. “We’re racing American machines and the fans know our drivers,” boasted John Frasco, the chairman of CART.
But in the ’90s, the auto industry continued to decline. More people left the downtown area. In the 2000s, Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick and his corruption scandals made national headlines. Then came the 2008 recession, and Detroit reached a new low: it became the largest U.S. city to ever file for bankruptcy.
In the spirit of Detroit Renaissance, wealthy businessmen Mike Ilitch and Dan Gilbert invested in reenergizing the city. The professional sports teams moved back downtown, and so did restaurants, bars, and large swaths of young people.
Just like the city, the Detroit Grand Prix has endured — albeit with interruptions here and there. For three decades, organizers ran the race on Belle Isle, a 982-acre island in the Detroit River. But in 2023, they moved it back downtown. The race still draws people from around the region. But without Formula 1, it has never really felt the same. The glamour is gone.
For seven years each June, Detroit got dressed up and threw a party for the whole world to see — “more than 100 million viewers in 47 countries” to be exact, according to the Free Press. The race may have cost a lot, but the price was worth it. For Robert McCabe, at least.
“The 1980 recession was a very difficult economic time in Detroit,” McCabe said in 1988, reflecting on the race’s origins, after Formula 1 had decided to leave. “Chrysler was on the rocks. We reached a point where a lot of people were raising the question, ‘What is the future of the auto industry?’”
He seemed to be getting emotional about it all. “The race became a way to stand up and say, ‘Hey, look at us: we’re here and we’re going to stay.’”
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