The Portland Rose Festival's Fleet Week got the bad news, as did other places around the nation (San Diego, NY, Broward, etc), when the Navy pulled its ships out. Then the Coast Guard followed suit and pulled out, too. Not directly a part of the Rose Festival but nonetheless painful, was the Navy's decision to pull its Blue Angels out of the Oregon International Air Show, and other events around the nation.
If you've got to cut back money, you're going to cut back spending on non-critical items, rather than cut back on things that affect readiness and capabilities. Eventually, the sequester may be restored, but if it isn't, then Fleet Week and the Rose Festival will have a critical void (no offense Canada, but your fleet, and everyone else's in the world, just isn't in the same category as the US Navy's...just look at the Littoral Combat Ship Class and the future Zumwalt Class destroyers).
So why not replace it with either an FIA Formula E street race, or create a Rose Festival original e-kart grand prix race on the streets of Downtown / Waterfront? It's the perfect way to boost Portland's green cred while bringing back racing to the Rose Festival. It's not loud like traditional car racing, unlike the old open wheel CART / Indycar racing at PIR, so a street course would be perfect.
No comments:
Post a Comment