Grand Prix of Houston

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From 1998 to 2001, CART (Champ Car's predecessor series) held a race on Houston's downtown streets, adjacent to the George R. Brown Convention Center. This event was sponsored by the oil company Texaco, and named the Texaco Grand Prix of Houston. However, construction in downtown Houston resulted in the race not being renewed for the 2002 Champ Car season.

In 2005, the Champ Car World Series announced that it would be making a return to Houston in 2006; for some time, series directors had wanted to make a return to the city. The 2006 event was held on May 13 as the second round of the 2006 Champ Car schedule. However, this time the race was held on a 1.7-mile temporary street circuit on the Reliant Park complex instead of the downtown streets and was the first race held on a street course to run at night in the history of Champ Car or its precursor series (in 2003 and 2004, Champ Car ran under the lights at Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland, Ohio). Also, the American Le Mans Series held an event, the Lone Star Grand Prix, on the previous night, marking only the second time Champ Car and American Le Mans promoted their own events in the same city on the same weekend (they joined in 2003 for the Grand Prix Americas in Miami, Florida). For 2007, JAG Flocomponents picked up the naming rights to the previously unnamed street course, naming it JAGFlo Speedway at Reliant Park.

Features

A unique feature of the 2006 Grand Prix of Houston was the Champ Car paddock, which was located inside Reliant Arena. The Newman/Haas, RuSPORT, Dale Coyne, and Team Australia haulers were on the northern side, while the Forsythe, Rocketsports, PKV, and CTE-HVM teams were on the southern side.

A round of the popular Face of Champ Car beauty contest was also held during the Grand Prix weekend. Current Face of Champ Car Brandi Latimer had a visible presence at the circuit, and Brooke Adams won the Houston round of the contest. Adams was unable to complete her duties as Miss Grand Prix therefor 1st Runner Up Angela Rutledge was crowned the new queen. Rutledge, along with the winners of from Long Beach, Cleveland, Toronto, Edmonton, San Jose, Denver, and Surfers Paradise will travel to Mexico City to compete to become the 2006 "Face of Champ Car". Lauren Gardner from Denver won the grand final and became the 2007 Face of Champ Car.

Race winners

External links

* [http://www.grandprixofhouston.com Grand Prix of Houston Homepage]
* [http://www.reliantpark.com/default.asp Reliant Park Homepage]
* [http://www.grandprixofhouston.com/tickets.html Grand Prix of Houston Tickets]