Detroit Free Press staff 2018 Chevrolet Detroit Gran Prix presented by Lear When: Friday through Sunday. Where: Belle Isle, Detroit. TV: ABC for race on Saturday and Sunday. Weather forecast: Friday, thunderstorms, 82 degrees; Saturday, partly cloudy, 71 degrees; Sunday, clouds in the morning move out in the afternoon, 71 degrees. Tickets: Friday's events are free. Prices range from $40 for one day to $155 for front row chairs for Saturday and Sunday. More ticket information available at detroitgp.com. 2017 winners: Graham Rahal won both races. Schedule: Friday 7:30 a.m.: Gates open 7:30: Trans Am Series Practice 1 8:15: IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship Practice 1 (Prototype/GT Daytona) 10:05: SPEED Energy Stadium SUPER Truck Series - Practice & Qualifying 11:20: Verizon IndyCar Series Practice 1 12:20 p.m.: Trans Am Series Practice 2 1:05: IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Practice 2 (Prototype/GT Daytona) 3:15: Verizon IndyCar Series Practice 2 4:05: Verizon IndyCar Series Pit Stop Practice 4:35: Trans Am Series Qualifying - Race 1 5:20: IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Qualifying (Prototype/GT Daytona) Saturday 7:30 a.m.: Gates open 8:00: IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Warm-Up (P/PC/GT Daytona) 8:45: 3-Dimensional Services Muscle Car Challenge (Trans Am Series Race 1) 10:05: SPEED Energy Stadium SUPER Truck Series - Race 1 10:55: Verizon IndyCar Series - Qualifying for Dual I 12:30 p.m.: Chevrolet Sports Car Classic (IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship Race) 3:30: Chevrolet Dual in Detroit - Dual I (VICS Race #1) Sunday 8 a.m.: Gates open 10:45: Verizon IndyCar Series Qualifying - Dual II 11:45: 3-Dimensional Services Motor City Dash (Trans Am Series Race 2) 2:05 p.m.: SPEED Energy Stadium SUPER Truck Series- Race 2 3:30: Chevrolet Dual in Detroit - Dual II<doc-sep>The Detroit Grand Prix kicks off this weekend, but construction for the three-day event has been underway on Belle Isle for weeks. Visitors to the island park over the holiday weekend were rerouted from the normal road along the west side—which is completely blocked off right now—to the interior road with the giant slide and the Aquarium. With temperatures reaching the 90s, many flocked to the island for picnics and beach time. So many people visited, that the Michigan State Police closed Belle Isle to vehicles on the holiday. We have temporarily closed Belle Isle Park due to overcrowding. We are going to continue to monitor the crowd and as people leave we will let more on. Thanks for your patience as we keep the park safe for all that want to visit! pic.twitter.com/8qqBzMnXEL — MSP Metro Detroit (@mspmetrodet) May 28, 2018 Race organizers have to decide on a place for next year’s Grand Prix by mid-summer, reports Bill Shea at Crain’s. They fully expect to keep holding the race at the island park. Supporters of the race say that it brings a lot of positive visibility to the city, and the island is a great venue for it. Many also note the economic benefits from the race, although the amount of improvements to the island is debated. Protesters would like to see the race held in a different part of the city, perhaps at City Airport or downtown, as it once was. The set-up for the event also takes much longer than similar events in different cities. What are your thoughts, Curbed readers? Keep it where it is, or move it to another place?<doc-sep>Detroit — The new 2018 IndyCar cars coming to The Raceway on Belle Isle this weekend are prettier than the previous model used in the open-wheel racing series, until 2017. But do not let that fool you. Like some attractive boyfriends and girlfriends brought home to meet the parents, this one can be a handful. More demanding of drivers than any recent car designed for the IndyCar Series, it is less attached to the race course. The intent of reducing is to create more compelling racing, in part, by increasing speed on the straights and affording closer following for more passing. Veteran racers accustomed to a vehicle stacked with wings front and rear, pinning the car to the track, strive to deliver the performance their cars no longer provide. With vision, reaction, steering wheel, throttle, transmission and brakes, drivers seek speed while endeavoring to regain some of the control no longer commanded by the car. A reassertion of human performance, sought generally throughout motorsports in the current era, is the firm intention. The IndyCar Series is getting after it. But, at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Sunday, an intense mid-spring heat combined with the continuing shock of the new among drivers and crews to play a bit of havoc with the 500. The configuration of the 2018 car designed for big ovals proved integral to the spinouts of Danica Patrick, Tony Kanaan, the three-time 500-winner Helio Castroneves and the four-time IndyCar champion Sebastien Bourdais. The other of the two configurations of the new model, created for road tracks and in use in Detroit, is designed to provide more downforce. But the amount is still a significant reduction from the road course set-ups, for 2017. The impact on the racing in the Detroit Grand Prix (3:30 p.m., Saturday and Sunday) will become far clearer after the first several drivers do their first few laps on the long track on Belle Isle, with its varying surfaces, tight turns and jarring bumps. But drivers and crews say they have a far clearer sense of the possibilities before Detroit than they did before Indianapolis. “In the street courses, thus far, it’s really improved the racing, quite a lot,” said Ed Carpenter, the veteran team owner and driver, who qualified for the Indianapolis 500 pole a full football field in front of second place, but finished the race in second, behind Will Power, of Team Penske. “I think Detroit’s always been a pretty good race as it was, so I think it will be that much better this year.” After the third day of testing the big-oval configuration of the new car at Indianapolis earlier this month, Graham Rahal described what Patrick, Kanaan, Castroneves and Bourdais felt too much of, for the best competitive racing, Sunday. “When it gives up, it's like ice. And then, bang!” Rahal said of the car sliding. “It's difficult because you don't know what a fine line it is.” But, in its road track configuration, the new car will be better in Detroit, said the big driver, who scintillated fans with a car so hot off the hauler last season that he swept both races. While the Raceway on Belle Isle, with its multiple asphalt and concrete surfaces and the high concentration of bumps that persists despite extensive improvements, presents unique challenges, Rahal and other drives are confident in better, more-assured racing than Indianapolis. “I mean, it’s definitely tricky. There’s no doubt about that,” he said, two days before the 500. “From our perspective, I think it’s going to perform really well in Detroit. It’s a really promising car to go there and race with. “On the street courses, if you look what we’ve had so far at St. Pete as well as when we went to Long Beach, it’s been good,” he said. “In Long Beach, I put myself in a bad position; had to go to the back of the pack. I drew a penalty. And I was able pass my way all of the way up through the field. “So, I think that from that perspective, people are really going to enjoy it.” Even driving the big-oval configuration of the new car, Alexander Rossi produced similar, optimal performance with a series of brilliant passes in the Indianapolis 500. It can be done. But drivers and teams are plainly grappling with the new design. That said, and while tweaks and more may be required to produce optimal performance with the new car, participants and observers are applauding IndyCar, and urging others, like Formula One, toward bolder pursuits. “They're doing the right thing with the aerodynamics of the cars and coming back to more of a pure-looking single-seater, open-wheel car, which I think was something all of the open-wheel aficionados wanted to see,” the great Mario Andretti, who won in both racing series, told Autosport, last week. “They reduced the downforce of the car … But with the smaller wings, you can stay near the guy's gearbox and you can have a competitive overtake. “I think personally that's where F1 missed it.” Formula One will not have a chance to made amends until its model of racing machine is redeveloped for the 2021 season. But as it moves through the transition with both configurations of its new model, even allowing for some problems like the difficulties at Indianapolis, the IndyCar Series is far into hoeing a new row for motorsports. It began with a simple concept removed from performance. Make it pretty, first, then design in competitiveness. The appearance harkens back 25-30 years, with a lower hood and drastically reduced wings streamlining the chassis. The old wings looked like someone tossed a large, dead alligator across the nose of the car. The new ones are trim. The rear wheels are exposed, with the large, boxy rear wheel guards banished. It helped move the weight forward two percent, to satisfy the drivers who wanted more bias frontward. There are new sidepods, which provide more safety from side impacts, and help shift the mass to the center of the car. The downforce of 5,500 pounds on the 2017 car is reduced by about 20 percent. With the wings gone, about 65 percent of it is generated from underneath the car, an increase from the 45 percent of the previous models. Downforce, which makes the car more stable and is produced by a combination of air resistance and gravity, is created less by physical riggings attached to the car than the forces of nature, harnessed by design, underneath the car. “There was a lot of downforce taken off the car, but the downforce is in the right spot,” said Jay Frye of IndyCar, who oversees operations, competition and technical matters for the IndyCar Series, during early drivers’ tests of the new car. “You saw where they could pull up on each other, and there wasn’t a washout of turbulence like there was before. “It looks much more racy than it did a year ago.” The changes were contemplated and designed with significant input from a broad representation of stakeholders in the IndyCar Series, including the drivers, who wanted more control and better racing. Around the course at Belle Isle, expect to see drivers working the steering wheel, switch panels and other controls in the cockpit, as the required human manipulation of the machine increases in importance. Mostly, drivers are required to be both more involved and more exacting, managing their greater participation in the vehicle with an emphasis on not overwhelming it. The harrowing spins that eliminated four of the most popular drivers in the field in the Indianapolis 500 resulted from far too much reliance on the stability of the front right wheels and tires on the big left turns. It forced the rear ends to wash out. There will be issues in Detroit. But they will be less about big spins in big turns, and more about controlling all of the bouncing about on bumps, anticipating the variable handling on the changing pavement and managing the quick, smaller turns in the context of the challenges of the new car.<doc-sep>
Indianapolis 500 winner Will Power got a lift from Team Penske owner Roger Penske off Belle Isle on Wednesday afternoon following a media luncheon at the Detroit Yacht Club. Power probably needs to conserve as much energy as he can before getting behind the wheel again in the Verizon IndyCar Series. He's been swamped with media responsibilities since winning the Indianapolis 500. "Any time you win the Indy 500, I love coming to the next race," said Penske, who considers the Detroit Grand Prix his home race. "Of course, (Power) is going to be tired from all the media events he's had, but he'll be tough. "The team is good. ... We've got some real superstars on the team. They're all champions." Detroit Free Press sports writer George Sipple looks at five things to know heading into the race weekend. Fountain of hope The Winner’s Circle has been moved this year to the James Scott Memorial Fountain. “There is kind of a fountain theme this year with the entire event,” said Michael Montri, the president of the Detroit Grand Prix. “Michael Simcoe, who is the chair of the Friday night Grand Prixmiere Gala, and his design team redesigned the trophies we’re going to be handing out and they did it in a crystal likeness of the James Scott Memorial Fountain. “New trophies this year, which are beautiful. As the centerpieces for the Friday night party, they’re going to be representation of that crystal James Scott Memorial Fountain. “With the fountain theme and new trophies, we thought ‘Man, let’s move (Winner’s Circle” over to the Fountain.' ” Montri said if Saturday and Sunday end up being windy days, the winners of the races might end up getting wet from spray of the fountains. He’s back Hélio Castroneves, coming off the worst finish of his career at the Indianapolis 500 (27th), returns to Belle Isle in a new ride, the No.7 Acura Dpi in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Castroneves, one of the most decorated IndyCar drivers of all time, is no longer a full-time driver in the Verizon IndyCar Series. "He's already talking to me about coming back to Indy next year," Penske said of Castroneves' desire to try and win a fourth Indy 500. "I think that'll happen for sure." Castroneves won the Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio earlier this month for Acura Team Penske. Castroneves is one of the most popular drivers in motorsports, so fans will adjust to seeing him compete this weekend outside of IndyCar. “IMSA really has grown,” Montri said. “We don’t look at it as a support series. We look at it as two main events on Saturday, and having Hélio in that series and in Detroit on Belle Isle, is a huge plus for the fans, huge plus for the sport and for the event.” More:Detroit Grand Prix: Golden Tate, Josef Newgarden resume table tennis rivalry Better views Montri said Grandstand 3 was moved to the outside of the track this year to help give a better view “of the cars coming down the long front straightaway between Turns 2 and 3.” Montri said two new viewing platforms were also constructed this year to get fans above the fence so they can see down onto the track in Turns 2 and 3. “We expanded the Belle Isle Club to some indoor seating to get out of the sun, grab a little bit of shade and relax indoors,” Montri said. Put a bow tie on it Power’s win at the Indianapolis 500 has the folks at Team Chevy excited up for the Dual in Detroit. The top of the GM Renaissance Center was decked out with a Chevy bow tie around a checkered flag on Thursday morning. All of the Team Penske drivers spoke about wanting to win this weekend for two reasons — it’s the home race for team owner Roger Penske and for Chevrolet. "The No.1 fun meter for me is to see our partner so elated over what we accomplished last weekend and what we accomplished over the month of May with Will winning the Grand Prix of Indy as well," said Bud Denker, president of Penske Corporation. "When that green flag falls (Friday) for that first practice, I get chills. All this work we put into this thing, a year of planning, now comes to fruition."