San Jose race adding more seats
The new rows are being added in response to a demand for seats in the highly popular, and recently sold out, grandstand located at the Toyota Hairpin Turn, Turn #1, which featured some of the best passes and most exciting on-track action during last's year's race on the improved and universally praised 1.5-mile seven-turn street circuit. The rows will be added to the bottom of the grandstand and will therefore not impact any existing seat holders. The addition of five rows will bring Grandstand 3 up to 31 rows and add a total of 130 new seats. The number of rows being added was based on sight lines. Tickets for the new seats went on sale on Tuesday May, 22.
"We very excited about the pace of ticket sales for this year's race," said Jantzen. "We have already sold out one of our major grandstands and sales in all the others are ahead of last year at this time. The hairpin grandstand is a very popular area because of all the action that takes place in that turn and after evaluating the location with our operations staff we determined that we could add some additional seats without negatively impacting the existing seat holders."
Today's announcement, along with the tremendous support the event has received to date from local businesses and the City of San José, is a strong indication that the Grand Prix, which is already the most successful sporting event in the history of San José having attracted over 120,000 fans to California's third largest city in each of the last two years, is well on its way to another great year.
"We're looking forward to another successful San José Grand Prix this summer," said Mayor Chuck Reed. "San José is pleased to host this prestigious event in downtown San José. We welcome all race car enthusiasts from throughout the Silicon Valley and San Francisco Bay Area to enjoy the race and experience the hospitality of our downtown restaurants, shops and entertainment venues."
In addition to Redback Networks, an Ericsson company, which signed in March as title sponsor of the "Redback Raceway" downtown temporary street circuit and Toyota, which sponsors the hairpin turn and a bridge crossing, the San José Grand Prix has received corporate support from such well know companies as Bottomley Distributing Company, which will showcase its Budweiser brand as the "official malt beverage advertiser" of the Grand Prix; The Sainte Claire, a Larkspur Hotel, which will serve as the "official race headquarter hotel"; AT&T Yellow Pages; City of San José; Clear Channel Ã� Radio; Comcast Cable; Cooper Tire Dealers; FedEx; Hertz Corporation/Equipment Rental; KNTV NBC 11; San José Mercury News; Telemundo (T48); Toyota; Westfield Corporation; and Yellow Checker Cab Company to name a few.
The Redback sponsorship will also feature a innovative technological element, the integration of Redback routing products and broadband services to Ã"video-enhance' the Grand Prix fan experience. Redback will use the power of the Internet to deliver on-demand video and live TV to cell-phones, PCs and HDTVs, allowing fans to access several on-site camera locations thus enhancing the race-day experience. Redback also will continue to sponsor the Canary Foundation CXO Celebrity Go Kart Challenge.