There has been a Formula One race in Monaco since forever. Same with races at Spa, and the Nurburgring. F1 races in the United States, however, have tended to bounce around in a sea of instability. That's often led to a lot of weirdness, either in the venue, or the race itself. But one race could be the weirdest.
You'd be forgiven, if you were under the age of, say, 25, for thinking that the United States Grand Prix has always been at either the Indianapolis Motor Speedway or the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. Maybe you've also heard of Watkins Glen, or how the Indy 500 used to be part of the F1 calendar.
In truth, F1 in the United States has never had a steady home. In the past sixty years there's not only been races at the three places mentioned, but also Phoenix, Detroit, Riverside, Long Beach, Sebring, and they even tried to hold one on Long Island. Represent, Strong Island.
There have been plenty of strange races at all of those venues, including the infamous 2005 United States Grand Prix, but none weirder than the Caesars Palace Grand Prix.
Yeah, it was called the "Caesars Palace Grand Prix" and it was held in Las Vegas. In a parking lot.
It only ran in 1981 and 1982, and it was completely bizarre. Not only were the drivers baked in extreme desert heat, but the layout was mind-numbingly repetitive:
The counter-clockwise direction hurt driver's necks and it took Nelson Piquet 15 minutes to get out of his car after suffering from heat exhaustion in the first race.
In short, it made no goddamn sense.
Surely that's not the weirdest American Grand Prix race, though. What do you think is the weirdest?
Photo credit: Stephanie/Wikicommons