1996 SCCA Trans-Am from Minneapolis (Children's Grand Prix of MN) - July 7, 1996

For three years, between 1996 and '98, the streets of Minneapolis became a racecourse. This, the Trans-Am series, was the premier event for the first year. The Trans-Am series competed in all three years of the Minneapolis event before sadly going away due to lack of sponsors, proper funding and poor ticket sales. In 2010, the series eventually made its way back to Minnesota, racing at the shortened 2.5 mile Brainerd Int'l Raceway road course.

[@franzvonriedel378]

Thank you Jerry for taking the time to share these! And in 1080 too, very nice! These are great to find!! I appreciate the info too (without spoiling the ending)!

[@TheAlignmentGuy_TM]

Thanks for your dedication to archiving so much racing history.

[@Lukerules72]

Thanks for the video, really cool to see as a Minneapolis resident and racing fan! I was curious where exactly this was in Minneapolis and was able to figure it out from watching this video. While Minneapolis has changed a lot, especially in near the Mississippi / Gold Medal Park, there are still lots of older buildings that giveaway the location of this course. I'll describe the track layout below -- pull up a map and follow along if you are interested.
Starting in front of the old Milwaukee Road Depot (turn 1), head north on 3rd Ave just to 2nd St where the track turns right and faces east for the long backstraight. The straight continues all the way to 10th Ave, broken up by a small chicane through a parking lot where the Guthrie currently stands. At 10th Ave, the track turns right, then right again to get back heading west on Washington Ave. Shortly after is another series of quick turns around singular city blocks, with a left onto Chicago Ave, right onto 3rd St, left onto Park Ave, right onto 4th St, and finally a right heading north on Portland Ave. From this point, the track heads back north and passes between the modern-day Wells Fargo buildings up to Washington Ave with a left turn to start the main straight. The main straight continues up to the Milwaukee Road Depot where the track's first corner is. The pit lane follows along the main straight from the final turn onto Washington Ave and exits just after the first turn.

[@IanTheMotorsportsMan_YT]

Thanks for uploading this! Glad to see another lost Trans-Am race found!

[@matthewmcsweeney5996]

It would've been cool to see an IndyCar race at this track.

[@RandyDubin]

This is great, thanks! Do you happen to have the 1997 Trans-Am race from here?

[@comicozzie1]

Unsure. Dad recorded a bunch of stuff. I'm basically grabbing a random tape, digitizing it on my laptop, editing, uploading the finished edit back to the computer once completed, and then uploading to RUclips. There must be an additional 40-50 tapes to go through yet. Each tape typically has 4 to 7 races on it.

[@WilliamMcCarthyIII]

@@comicozzie1 That's awesome. I'd love to help archive these some day if you ever needed help. I have some high end tape equipment and love archiving this kind of stuff. Thanks for your work getting this online! I don't think this has surfaced anywhere else before.

[@Jay-yf2jx]

Look who is in the camera shot at 5:07!!

[@patrickpalony7622]

Dude I’ve wanted to see this for years!