Cars Will Race Around The Parliament Building In May

The "Vodafone Bucharest Challenge 2007" car race on a street track will take place this year between 18 and 20 May in Bucharest, Romania.
The track will consist in circling, at an average speed of 230 kilometers per hour, the Parliament building, which is said to be the second largest building in the world after the Pentagon.

Over 200 million people are estimated to watch the car race in Bucharest via the television broadcasts.
The German organizers spent so far 13 million euros to bring the track up to safety standards.

The protection walls were brought in from Bilbao and are in line with the International Automobile Federation standards.
The public stalls will be built by a German specialized company and hold a total of 70,000 viewers.
The track will be 3,115 meters long and 1,015 wide.
It will take 14 turns and some 1.15 minutes to complete a race.
Several of them are scheduled to take place during the three days of events here, on a track passing through two boulevards and two streets in the city center.

The car races are the FIA GT, and European FIA GT3 Championships, the Formula 3 International UK, and the Dacia Logan Cup.

Radu Ancuta, head of the European Integration division in the City Hall, said the Germans' choice for Bucharest was motivated by the size and fame of the Parliament building.
"This huge construction is not much to us, but it draws the Westerners in like a magnet. Afterall, it is a huge building, and circling it in a car is not a thing one may do around the Pentagon," said Ancuta.
"When one is behind the protection wall, one sees a race with different eyes": said Ancuta.

The Formula 3 car race is deemed to bring 250,000 euros into the City Hall coffers; 3% of the sponsorship contracts and 2% of the tickets' sale.
For the time being, the City Hall ordered some 23 trees to be removed from the vicinity of the race track, for safety reasons.
The City Hall promised to replant the trees in the fall.

The big names or only local celebrities deemed to take part in the racing are Jenny Davis, Tomas Biaggi, Andrea Bartolini, Claudiu David, Mihai Marinescu and two members of a Romanian pop group!

"There are not many such racing tracks in Europe and it is a huge challenge for racing drivers to compete in a city. It is wonderful we will be located downtown, while the fact that Romanian drivers are racing too, honors us", said Albert Panaio, press officer with "Vodafone Bucharest Challenge 2007".

The ticket prices for the whole three-day event will stay at between 40 and 70 euros, with the VIP seats going for 800 euros.