Baltimore Grand Prix

As the dust settles and rain washes away the last vestiges of this year's Baltimore Grand Prix, I hope everyone reflects on the past few days in a way that allows them to see the potential and excitement of this event, rather than spend time complaining about what went wrong ("After Grand Prix, crews hustle to clear streets," Sept. 4). I moved to Baltimore from Paris, France, in 1998, and I'm originally from Montreal, Canada, a city that hosts its own Grand Prix (albeit of the Formula 1 kind)

The fact that the Baltimore Grand Prix happened at all - much less that it went smoothly - is remarkable and a testament to the professional management its new organizers brought to the event. Race On LLC and Andretti Sports Marketing took over management about 100 days before the race, and many - including this editorial page - questioned whether they could pull it off in that time. They did, and by many accounts they improved on some aspects of last year's grand prix. That said, we defer judgment on whether the race should be considered a success.

SATURDAY'S TELEVISION HIGHLIGHTS NASCAR N'wide NRA Amer. Warrior 300 ESPN27 IndyCar Baltimore Grand Prix qual. (T) NBCSP6 MLB Orioles@Yankees MASN1 St. Louis@Washington 45, 54 White Sox@Detroit WGN-A7 Boston@Oakland MLB4 WNBA Washington@New York NBA4 Boxing G. Golovkin vs. G. Proska HBO9:45 C. foot. Navy vs. Notre Dame 13, 99 a.m. Buffalo@Georgia 50Noon Miami (Ohio)

During the upcoming 2012 Baltimore Grand Prix, downtown Baltimore may not be as congested with traffic as people expect ("Downtown streets to close for Grand Prix of Baltimore," Aug. 30). The event's promoters say that attendance is expected to be lower than last year, and many residents of nearby neighborhoods are leaving town for the weekend. Baltimore Police will be keeping the traffic moving and everyone safe. Retail stores, eateries, pubs and bars in the area will be open. And when I was there last year, none of those businesses were crowded, even though you can see and hear some of the race from outside of the paid entrance areas.

You know you're old when? When you go out to interview a driver and are shocked by how young he looks when you're sure you interviewed him in the 1980s. Tommy Milner laughed. "You're thinking of my father," said the American Le Mans Series points leader in the GT class. "He used to race at Summit Point. Is that where you remember him from?" Yes, I remembered his father from Summit Point. This Tommy Milner is 26. He and his teammate, co-driver Oliver Gavin, lead the GT championship in their No. 4 Corvette C6.R by 18 points over Corvette teammates Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia in the No. 3 companion car coming into Saturday's ALMS race at the Baltimore Grand Prix.

So racing returns to downtown streets today, as the Grand Prix of Baltimore takes over the Inner Harbor and Camden Yards through Sunday. The new organizers of the revived racing festival have managed to avoid the tempest over tree removal that dogged the runup to last year's inaugural event.  But they've also dropped any pretense of reducing or mitigating the noise, unfiltered racecar exhaust and other environmental impacts of the extravaganza....

Michael Andretti, wearing his promoter's hat, stopped for a chat in the Baltimore Convention Center on Thursday afternoon. The IndyCar owner, who has taken on the job of organizing the Grand Prix of Baltimore this weekend through his company Andretti Sports Marketing, looked relaxed. "We're as ready as we've ever been for any event that we've ever done," he said when asked about preparations for the weekend festivities that kick off Friday morning when the gates open at 7:30 a.m. "The track is on schedule.

If it's possible to look back on last year's inaugural Baltimore Grand Prix without dwelling on the economic backlash that turned it into a financial 50-car pileup, it was a pretty cool event. The downtown area was packed all weekend and race organizers estimated that close to 150,000 fans from near and far showed up for three days of IndyCar and American Le Mans Series racing. It all went off without a hitch, until they started counting the receipts. Now, it's time to find out whether the novelty has worn off or the race will catch on big-time and become a second Preakness-like celebration at the other end of each summer.

I know nothing about open-wheel, IndyCar racing, but I do recognize what happens to squabbling families - and how they self-destruct. Until the Baltimore Grand Prix came to our city for a second time, I never bothered to study the sport, and I'm trying to learn. It's amazing there are so many "moving parts" to putting on a road race, and the skill and technology involved boggle the mind. If the people of Baltimore were smart (a questionable assumption), they would support the Baltimore Grand Prix in the same way they coddle the Ravens.

Takuma Sato nearly won the Indianapolis 500 in May, but a bold move for the lead relegated the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing driver to 17th as he spun while trying to pass eventual winner Dario Franchitti on the final lap. His car owner Bobby Rahal found no fault with his effort, but he admits his tongue sometimes "bleeds" as he bites back his thoughts on the man some say is brave, others define as crazy and all agree is fast. "You couldn't leave that day and be disappointed," Rahal said.