Group makes bid to return auto racing to Galveston

While Gillebaard didn’t win the race — he collided with a Fomoco Special and broke a crankshaft — he did get his name splashed across the top of the next day’s newspaper.

That race and the others like it during the 50s and 60s are fond memories for Gillebaard. Along with the thrills of competition, the Galveston races were where he met Diane, his wife of more than 50 years.

The races have long since left Galveston. The SCCA moved its races to the Texas World Speedway and other locations in the 1970s, the airport continued to grow as a business and amateur racing declined in popularity. Gillebaard himself gave up his dreams of becoming a professional driver in favor of safer endeavors.

But the topic returned in 2008 after the island was left reeling by Hurricane Ike. The airport itself was inundated, covered in the immediate aftermath of the storm by nine feet of water.

The recovery has been slow, and buoyed greatly by tourism, which only last year returned to pre-Ike levels. Gillebaard reasoned that if large events like Mardi Gras were helping bring business and attention to Galveston, why not bring one more?

“We’re in trouble,” Gillebaard said to himself. “And we need to get people to know Galveston.”

So, he thought, why not bring something that brings not only people to the island but cameras and satellite trucks, as well? Why not bring racing back to Galveston?

The proposal

In January, Gillebaard and a group calling itself Galveston Events Management made a presentation to the city council about bringing racing back to Galveston.

The idea would be to turn the airport into an official raceway for a NASCAR-sanctioned event. The promoters specifically pointed to the Rolex Grand American Racing Series, a set of races that include cars (including Porches and BMWs) that hit speeds up to 200 mph and are raced on speedways and road courses from Connecticut to California.

The proposed Galveston Grand Prix would “assist Galveston in re-establishing the spotlight on this historic city as a competitive member of (the) state republic of Texas and the nation.”

Under GEM’s proposal, the airport would be turned into a 12-turn, 2.8-mile raceway with room for over 72,000 spectators.

GEM President Barry Smyth said the idea has been in the works for some time and has involved consultation with professional racing organizations and community members

“We’ve been trying to get to where we are for about three years,” Smythe said, while stressing the idea was to hold an event that brought work and money to people who live in Galveston.

“We want to work with people on the island and in the county,” Smythe said.

The promoters say a race held in the spring would attract big-spending race fans from Houston and abroad and funnel them into the city’s hotels and restaurants. And if the first race is a success, the promoters would pursue adding other events, such as an airshow or classic car show.

Racing in Texas

If a race happened, Galveston wouldn’t be the first Texas city to become a go-to place for race fans.

The Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, which was built in 1995, is the site of Sprint Cup, Nationwide and IndyCar races. Last November, Austin’s Circuit of the Americas debuted with the inaugural United States Grand Prix.

That $400 million track, which was surrounded by controversy over public funding, will also host a Rolex Series Race this year. Its debut race was considered a success, after drawing more than 117,000 fans to the city.

It remains to be seen, however, if the event made up for its estimated $293 million in expenditures, including $26.4 million in new tax revenue.

Smyth said the Galveston plan isn’t nearly as ambitious or costly as Austin’s and would draw smaller crowds to see less expensive cars. Promoters would handle the capital costs and management of the event, he said, requiring only that the city allow the event to use the airport’s runways as a track, which may be the single biggest hang-up in the whole plan.

Airport concerns

At GEM’s meeting with the city council, airport Director Hud Hopkins deferred to the council for the final say over the proposal but did not give it a ringing endorsement.

“Once he starts moving in, we start shutting down,” Hopkins said. “I’ve told Barry since 2008 that we’re an airport, we don’t do car races.”

Hopkins said he was concerned about the part of the proposal that would close the airport for up to three weeks, as well as any damage that might be done to the runway if it is turned into a racetrack. He was also unsure if the Federal Aviation Administration would approve of the shutdown.

Although it does not service commercial jet liners, the airport does have leases with a number of helicopter companies who, in turn, provide service to oil companies that need to reach their rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Hopkins said rental space for private companies is responsible for most of the airport’s revenue.

City officials expressed concern at the proposal meeting about the risk of losing long-term tenants at the airport in the name of holding a new event. There were already some tenants that moved to the mainland following Ike and never returned.

The council recommended that a committee be formed to study the idea further, though the GEM representatives stressed that in order to bring a race to Galveston in 2014, the idea would need to be approved soon.

NASCAR needed

Bringing a professional race to Galveston would require support from NASCAR, which acts as a sanctioning body for a number of professional racing series. Part of NASCAR’s power is its ability to set new racing schedules every year.

This year’s Rolex Racing Series schedule featured four new races in Austin, Kansas City, Kan., Braselton, Ga., and Elkhart Lake, Wis.

A NASCAR spokesman acknowledged they had received overtures from advocates of a Galveston race but said it was too early to make any announcements about next year.

“All of our schedules are assembled on a year-to-year basis,” NASCAR spokesman Herb Branham said. “We will likely announce our 2014 schedule toward the end of this season, so it would be premature to comment at this time regarding possibilities, much less probabilities.”

This year’s schedule was released in September 2012.

Branham said 2014 will also be the first year the Rolex Series would be merged with the similar American Le Mans Series. He said NASCAR expected many cities to make bids to attract the new-look series.