Ladies and Gentleman Please Rise

By Bob Wild

It was always a question of what and when will it go wrong? Would we lose the band?  Will the tape break? Will our singer get lost or lose her voice? Or having ensured that none of these have gone awry, will an enthusiastic staffer decide that we didnt know what was happening and try to correct a situation that didnt need correcting? Just what folly can happen next? We never knew. All we knew is no matter how hard we tried, no matter how detailed the script, in spite of all our attempts at communication, somehow the National Anthem would become a major problem.

I know what you are thinking. The National Anthem, Oh Say Can You See . . .   a problem? We must be crazy, or at best incompetent! The following are true events that happened over the past years at the Grand Prix of Miami Car Race. By the time you finish you will see that we were not dumb or incompetent,  but much worse, we were unlucky!

In the beginning we had an idea to turn Miami city streets into a race track for some of the fastest cars in the world. After a lot of planning and promises The City of Miami Commission gave us control over part of downtown Miami, including all of Bayfront Park for three days. We then persuaded the State of Florida to allow us to close the part of Biscayne Boulevard (US1) that was in the middle of it all and change its speed limit from 35 to 150.

Building a race track requires smooth streets, safety barriers and special fencing designed to contain any cars that wreck and try to bounce into the spectators. There is a book of rules that gives promoters basic international standards of design, safety and comfort for the teams and drivers. After spending a fortune on paving, building and installing barriers, and meeting other requirements too detailed for this story, we turned our city streets into an internationally sanctioned race track that met and exceeded all of the rules.

 In addition to preparing for the race we had to secure the site so that we had control over the spectator area. First we installed more than ten miles of fencing. Then we trucked in thousands of grandstand seats from all over North America and erected them on both the inside and the outer perimeter of the circuit. Six huge pedestrian bridges were designed, engineered and erected, so that the fans could access the infield area by crossing over the race track.

The infield was designed to be fun for the crowd. It contained huge circus tents filled with food, music and souvenirs. It also contained corporate displays and all kinds of games. In short we turned downtown Miami into the greatest car show on earth.

Saturday, the day before the main event, was ideal. The sky was clear.  It was 80 degrees. The setting on beautiful Biscayne Bay was glorious. The public came in droves to watch cars racing in a park and on public streets. We were amazed to see the mass of people watching the race cars practice for Sundays main event. While they were watching, they never stopped eating, drinking, and buying souvenirs from our concession stands. We had the deep satisfaction of observing them having fun in our newly built adult playpen.

The site was so nice that many of the local media began to compare us to the original "Grand Prix" in Monte Carlo. We created a milieu of stars and cars. The stars included Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Bennet, Gene Hackman, and Paul Newman. We also attracted some of the worlds best star drivers including Mario Andretti, Juan Fangio,  Danny Sullivan and Emerson Fittipauldi.

Then there were the cars. They were enough to bring tears of desire to a grown man. Here were the most beautiful and powerful sports cars in the world all ready to perform to their maximum potential. In the field were prototype Porches, Jaguars, Nissans, Toyotas, Fords and Chevys. Sprinkled in were experimental cars that were so exotic they were not going to be available to the public.

The mixture of music, food, people, stars and cars, turned the area from a city park into a happening! Then it began to rain.

Here we were on a Sunday afternoon in February. We chose this weekend because throughout South Floridas history it has had the driest and best weather of the year. But  February, 1983 was as abnormal as a Ripley exhibit. This wasnt even normal rain. This was gushing, frog chocking, turtle drowning, Noahs Ark, flood.  In one hour the deluge set a new all-time rain fall record for the month!  It was impossible to drain the water from our track as fast as it was falling.  The result was the rising water created the worlds longest swimming pool.

We thought about canceling but that would be giving up. We said that we were going to put on a race and no small drizzle was going to stop us. We started making adjustments to our plans. We killed all of the planned pre race ceremonies including the welcomes and National Anthem because we were sure that the first to touch the microphone would get electrocuted. ( No one was willing to get shocked just to say hello to the few die-hard fans who remained.)

We were just about to throw in the towel when we got a break. The rain slowed down to a normal downpour. We grabbed the chance and started the race. The brave or dumb drivers, you pick the adjective, tried to compete. Twenty minutes into the contest, it started raining hard again. In a few minutes we stopped the race because the car that was leading literally floated into a wall, its wheels adrift on four inches of water.

The winner was declared, and our owner paid everyone who was due money. We ended up with a million dollar debt and a lot of experience. As a side note: we have photos showing four people sitting in our main grandstand during the rain. Over the years we have had at least 10,000 people all tell us they were at the race and getting soaked while in that grandstand at that time. I always wonder why they are not in the photo?

The consensus was that we would be completely crazy to try it again. But who has ever heard of a logical race promoter. (In fact logical race promoter is an oxymoron.) So in February, 1984 we tried it again. This time it rained a bit on the Saturday before the race which made us really depressed. But  race day was beautiful. Again we had the cars, many more stars and this time a huge crowd.

To get things started we organized a parade so the stars could view the full grandstands and the crowd could see the stars. We planned the parade so that the last car would carry our National Anthem singers, The BeeGees. As the parade went by the start/finish line, which was also center stage for our event, this car would stop, The BeeGees would get out, and then the car would continue on. Timing was critical because we were being broadcast on international television.

The parade was going much slower then we had planned. All of a sudden our General Manager, who had wanted nothing to do with the parade, decided to help.  As the cars came by the start/finish line, he started yelling at them to speed up. They all obeyed except the last car. This he took as a questioning of his authority. He demanded that all the cars leave the track.  The driver started to argue. The GM said Go! Go! Go! and had a city cop who was with him to make sure it went!

A couple of minutes later the GM started yelling, "Where is the National Anthem singer?" We said.  You chased them away! The G.M. screamed, "Who was it?" We answered, "The guys in the last parade car." The GM turned purple and said, "Next time get someone I know!"   In subsequent years we tried  to comply with the GMs request,  but the only National Anthem singer he knew was Mario Lanza, who due to his passing, was unavailable.

The next year we figured that there was no way we would mess up the Anthem. It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon and we hired the 100 member University of Miami uniformed marching "Band of the Hour" to play the Anthem. We moved them a little way down the race track so they would perform in front of our largest grandstand.  We rehearsed, and we were set!

On the walkie talkie we cued the track announcer. He said, "Ladies and gentleman please rise for our National Anthem." We cued the band master and 20 seconds later heard a beautiful National Anthem. All of a sudden a voice on the walkie talkie said, "The  band isnt playing!" Another voice said, "Yes they are I hear them!" The first said "Look!"

After squinting through eyes blurred by sweat from running around in the hot sun we realized that the "Band of the Hour" was standing in the middle of the track, facing thousands of standing people, with their instruments in the playing position, silent, but looking good.

This started an instant flurry of radio traffic. After the longest 20 seconds in a decade we discovered that a very helpful staffer thought since she could not see the band from her perch, the band didnt show up. And since she had the backup tape of the National Anthem, a tape player and the emergency backup microphone, this would be the perfect time to start the tape and save the day!

The question now was, would the University band director realize that we had accidently played the taped National Anthem?  Would he realize the last thing we needed was a second National Anthem? None of us were close enough to talk to him, so we did the next best thing we could think of, we prayed. We prayed that he would just march his kids off after the tape was finished. Well you can guess what happened. The tape ended and the people in the grandstand started to sit when suddenly, like in a bad movie, the band began to play the National Anthem. The people in the Grandstand were so confused that they froze. Not quite standing or sitting. They looked like they had just found an ice-cold toilet seat in an outhouse. We were stunned. None of us had seen so many confused people in one place at the same time. What was amazing is the length of time they stayed squatting.

Finally the band finished and marched out. At this point our owner ran over and asked, "What happened?" We said, "Last year we had no National Anthem, this year two. Now we are even!"

The next race took place in February, 1986. It was beautiful, if a bit windy. To make the pre race activities as easy as possible we agreed to play a tape of the National Anthem. This way we could avoid our past problems. But we wanted to give our opening ceremonies a touch of pageantry. So we figured that we would have the American flag brought into the track by a parachutist! To our delight, one of our sponsors also sponsored the reigning world champion parachute team. We knew that this would be easy. We would have no problems.

Jump time was set for noon. At 12:00 we looked into the glaring sun. The plane was overhead. We looked away and heard they had jumped. So we told the crowd to get ready here comes the flag! We looked up but the sun was directly between us and the parachutist, so bright we couldnt see him. One of our staff looked up and said, "There he is!" So we announced that he was almost down. We waited for the next spotting. Nothing. We asked each other, can you see him? We looked up and saw a bright empty sky.

After five minutes we assumed he was lost in the Bermuda Triangle. (Please keep in mind  that Biscayne Bay is the western border of our track and it is the eastern border of the Bermuda Triangle.) We had to assume that he was swallowed up like the lost squadrons of WWII. At this point we gave up. We found our backup American Flag, played the tape of the National Anthem and started the race on time.

In the following year we had a politician supply us with a drum and bugle corps who ended up lost  in our biggest crowd.  By the time we found them and brought them to the correct area, they were too late to play. The race started without them. We invited them back for the following year. But when we never got a response, we figured that, true to form, it got lost in the mail.

By 1989 we were invited to present the race live on the NBC network. A dream come true! Nothing was going to be left to chance. The only new element we added was a daytime fireworks exhibit. What could go wrong with fireworks?

The big day arrived. The NBC producer said, "go!" And we started the tape of the National Anthem. Simultaneously we started the fireworks. Nobody told us that daytime fireworks create excessive smoke. There was enough thick smoke to cover the crowd, the T.V. cameras, and the race cars.  Visibility was so low that we had to delay the race by ten minutes. It was amazing! We even had to ask the blimp to move away until the smoke cleared. To this day you will never see live daytime fireworks on NBC.

The bottom line is that every year for 16 years we put on the race, and each year wed find a new way to mess up. No matter what we tried, we just couldnt get it to be perfect. The weird thing is that very few people who came to the race had any idea of the struggle and panic that was taking place right in front of their eyes. We put on a calm face and kept the show going. I am always reminded of the line that says you never want to see a hot dog being made. Next time you view a race, watch the National Anthem, and ask yourself, is this the way its supposed to be?

By the way, if you are going down the highway and you see a parachutist whos carrying a flag, please call. Wed love to know what happened to him!

2005 Bob Wild