My Experience In Markham
For almost four decades, Toronto’s waterfront hosted one of Canada’s biggest motor races: the Grand Prix of Toronto1. It hosted battles between some of American open-wheel’s best talents: Andretti, Unser, Dixon, to name a few. Toronto has been the only event held outside the U.S. for several years and is one of the most tenured events on the volatile IndyCar calendar, cancelled only in 2008 and the first two years of the COVID pandemic.
But this year, things are different: There will be no 700-horsepower machines thrashing around Exhibition Place. Instead, IndyCar is headed 45 minutes north2 to the bordering town of Markham for the inaugural Grand Prix of Markham. And I was on scene for the full weekend to experience it!
So, how did the biggest sporting event this suburban town ever hosted do? Well, it depends on how you feel about improper track work, semi-unprepared amenities, chaotic racing, and pretty solid at-track festivities. Keep reading for the details!
Getting There
Getting to the track was quicker, but harder than the Toronto Grand Prix. Markham is a part of York Region and thus uses York Regional Transit buses as part of its public transit. The buses are pretty snug, but they suck for one main reason… they’re very infrequent. Like once-every-30-minutes infrequent. But depending on where you’re located, the track was built around a train station so you can literally hop right off the train and onto the track.
The venue is situated in the humble downtown core of the city, north of the demonic toll highway known as Highway 407. Surrounding it were the Markham Pan-Am Centre, a university campus, and several condos under construction. Walking down Main Street towards the track was a pretty cool experience: Beyond the abundance of nature and suburban homes was the harrowing orchestra of combustion engines firing on all cylinders!
At The Track
The track created by the promoters is 2.19 miles long with 12 corners. Turn 5 stands out the most: It’s a 180-degree hairpin situated on Enterprise Blvd, with drivers needing to come to a halt to maneuver around the low-radius and flat corner. The sector of the track leading up to it looked very narrow and sketchy - I’m surprised they could even fit two cars side-by-side through them!
The track amenities and vendors were plentiful - there was a police division showing off the gadgets our taxpayer money went to (including a search-and-rescue vehicle which looked quite cool), a few merchandise stores, lots of food trucks, and some racing simulators. It wasn’t all sunshine and roses though - on Saturday there was only one water refill station and the garbage situation was pretty bad with how quickly cans overflowed. The former was fixed on Sunday, the latter ignored. This isn’t even mentioning delayed track preparations cancelling all Friday sessions!
I had grandstand seats at turn 5 as I expected it to be the area with the most passing. It was a good pick given how chaotic races turned out to be. The NASCAR Canada race on Saturday featured plenty of contact and attrition. With fenders, drivers were generous in how physical they got with one another, nudging and bumping away with only cosmetic damage. Series benchmark Marc Antoine Camirand led flag-to-flag for his 7th win in 11 races.
Sunday’s main event, IndyCar, featured more attrition with six caution periods (the most this year behind the Indy 500). Due to how hard it was to pass, strategies were split and blended together. In the end, 2022 Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson snatched the lead with five to go from Romain Grosjean and became the first winner of the Markham Grand Prix.
Overall, I’d give the whole event a 3.5 out of 5. The racing was chaotic and a bit of a yellowfest, but it had great moments, especially with the IndyCar race being a strategy roulette. There were plenty of vendors on-site with a diverse set of food and sweets, plenty of merch (I bought a 1/64 Mk3 Toyota Supra), and it does beat the previous venue in visibility.
However, preparation was a letdown with Friday losing all its sessions and some minor adjustments were needed, but that’s to be expected with a brand new circuit. Overall, I’m not too miffed about Toronto losing the race to its northern neighbour, and I’m certainly down to go again. With four more years in its contract, I can only see the quality of this event going up.
Now, let’s see how this event stacks up with this Sunday’s race: Another inaugural street race, but hosted in Washington, D.C….