THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 19, 1995 TAG: 9503170170
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Bill Reed
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
Don't start your engines just yet, folks.
Grand Prix racing has a way to go before it hits the Beach. Some day Indy-style cars, plastered with Valvoline, Mi-Jack and Mobil logos, may zoom down Atlantic Avenue, but don't hold your breath.
That's a forecast offered by the Great Tortellini, the Western World's foremost soothsayer.
Tortellini has a pretty good track record in the prognostication racket. He was the first to foretell the devastating hurricane of 1933, prophesied the arrival of the Ash Wednesday storm in 1962, predicted the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helen, called the San Francisco earthquake of 1989 and warned of the great Midwestern flood of 1993.
Doubters of Tortellini's powers of clairvoyance are therefore urged to take a gander at his crystal ball.
See those clouds of exhaust fumes rising in the April or October air between Atlantic Avenue high-rises. Smell that burning rubber. Look at that crankcase oil splattered on those brand new streets and sidewalks the city has spent millions to beautify.
Hear that ear-splitting roar as the cars zoom by? Now look at those hotel and motel patrons cowering on their oceanfront balconies. Why, they're wearing gas masks and ear plugs!
Now look at all those cops directing Expressway traffic away from the resort strip toward Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News and Williamsburg.
And listen to the innkeepers, restaurant owners and retailers squawk as tourists leave town in droves because they can't get to the resort district.
Remember the reaction of these same merchants to the power boat races and Hoop-it-Up basketball competition? And how did they react to the North American Fire Works Competition? The yapping all but drowned out the roar of boat engines and the boom of exploding fireworks.
As for the Hoop-it-Up program, forget it. The good burghers saw it as a big waste of time - a bunch of sweaty punks taking up street space to play basketball and spending absolutely Nooo money.
Same thing could happen at a grand prix race, Tortellini reasons. The busiest oceanfront thoroughfares would have to be fenced off like a maximum security prison for safety reasons.
But, give city officials credit. They're trying to dream up ways to bring new attractions to the Beach during ``shoulder'' or off-season months. They decided the race was an idea that needed a second look, so they visited Miami two weekends ago to see how the South Florida metropolis handles it. The reaction was positive, visiting locals said, but the concept needs a lot of study.
Miami has a lot more going for it than the Beach to attract big ticket auto racing. First, there's the subtropical climate year round. Then there's the extensive shoreline, which Virginia Beach lacks. Miami also has a bigger and more diverse populace and is accustomed to handling big league events, like the Orange Bowl, the Super Bowl and major riots.
The closest Virginia Beach has come to the big leagues was as a potential site for a horse track that later wound up in the wilderness of New Kent County.
A 20,000-seat Virginia Beach amphitheater, scheduled to open in the spring of 1996 near Princess Anne Park, can be considered a legitimate major-caliber project. And it should fly - providing local pols don't muck up the deal.
As for the Grand Prix, the Great Tortellini has deemed it a nice idea, but one that the Virginia Beach resort strip can do without.
Even in the fall, when summer tourists have retreated to Cleveland or Pittsburgh, the 42-block stretch of oceanfront is hard pressed to handle the mostly local Neptune Festival crowd. by CNB