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Silver State News Service
Sebring: The Next Great Air Race?
Coming in October!
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The Potential for Competitive Aerial Motorsports at Sebring, Florida Air Racing -- "The World's Fastest Motorsport" The City of Sebring, Florida, has the enormous potential to create a huge draw by merging local population and Tourism figures into one combined spectator force, while generating new Fan, Business and Corporate Sponsorship interest in a long-established and X-tremely competitive motorsport. Add to that, the City of Sebring and the Sebring Regional Airport Authority have the local assets and combined ability to bring The World's Fastest Motorsport to an established East Coast Auto Racing venue. Home to the 12 Hours of Sebring endurance race, the City of Sebring will finally give the East Coast pilots a venue of their own and can add a third jewel to the "Triple Crown" of US Air Racing events (Reno, Las Vegas and Sebring). An Air Race at Sebring in the Spring can take advantage of the Spring Break and Easter vacation periods, plus the end of the East Coast Winter Tourist season in Florida. Nearly sixteen million people live throughout Florida, from the panhandle to the Florida Keys, representing 296.4 people per square mile according to the latest (2000) census figures. The City of Sebring, an Agricultural community located near Florida's famed Everglades, in Highlands County, on US Hwy 27, hosts a population of 37,301 people, with Highlands County hosting an overall population of 88,212 people as of 2001. Despite the watery marshlands of Central Florida, Highlands County is "landlocked" by the surrounding counties of Osceola (179,534), Polk (496,112), Hardee (26,921), De Soto (32,736), Okeechobee (36,147), Charlotte (144,571) and Glades (10,612), which border Highlands County, thereby providing an additional population of 926,633 local residents. This means that the potential spectator draw at Sebring, without considering the outside estimates of Florida Tourism, is well over 1,000,000 people within these eight counties alone. With Sebring International Raceway co-located with the Airport, and plenty of open land adjacent to both facilities available to support the Jets, Unlimited, Sport, AT-6, International Formula One and Sport Biplane divisions, the infrastructure is essentially there that would allow for ease of start-up of a new competitive Motorsports event. The historic, 51-year-old 12 Hours of Sebring endurance race annually hosts the second largest attendance in Auto Racing, second only to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in France, with over 168,000 people present at Sebring in 2002. With Air Racing and Auto Racing, plus a number of other popular Motorsports events located at Sebring, the merge of the two Worlds in Motorsports would mark a historic moment... ...a moment in which the collective interests of both Worlds are advanced by merging the collective Fan interest into an uncommon series of epic Motorsports events, all held at Sebring within the short span of a three month period...(to be continued) Complete Story Coming in October at Silver State News Service |
| Sebring: The Next Great Air
Race (Coming Soon! Here's what will be covered:) Chapters: Introduction -- Air Racing: A New Dawn in the 21st Century
I -- The City of Sebring, Florida
II -- Air Racing Revival
III -- What Sebring Has To Offer
IV -- Site Support at Sebring
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V -- The Planes & Pilots
VI -- Air Racing Organizations
VII -- The East Coast Sponsorship Pool
VIII -- A Triple Crown of Air Racing
IX -- Growth
X -- The World's Fastest Motorsport: An Enormous Human Interest Potential XI -- Income Potential at Sebring XII -- Conclusions Sebring -- Points of Contact:
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