F1 weekend success for some, not others

AUSTIN (KXAN) - The Formula One U.S. Grand Prix race is over. The international teams and their hundreds of thousands of fans have gone home.  

There are winners and losers on the track.

The same holds true for businesses and departments and agencies in Austin following the race weekend and all the festivities surrounding it.

For some, it was more of a practice round. For others, it was like a first place finish.

When it comes to traffic and transportation, Capital Metro and the city's transportation department say they were on point, and the weekend was a success.  For several businesses around town, for instance on South Congress Avenue, it was anything but.

Sales associate Stefan Chebultz is back at work Monday at New Bohemia on South Congress Avenue following an under whelming weekend for the business.

"We thought it was going to be crazy," Chebultz says, "like an A[ustin] C[ity] L[imits Music Festival] or South by Southwest weekend, and it didn't turn out like that at all."
    
In fact, he said it was far slower than even a normal weekend. He went home early both days.

The F1 traffic just didn't seem to make its way down South Congress Avenue.

"Lots of helicopters, but that was as much traffic as we got over here, is helicopters flying up and down," Chebultz says.

It was the same story for the several food trucks that line the iconic Austin street. Some workers said F1 weekend was the slowest couple of days they could remember,

The pace wasn't slow for everyone.

For Austin's Capital Metro and the City of Austin Transportation Department , the crowds showed up, and showed up in big numbers.

"I think we were right on the money," said Director of Transportation Robert Spillar.

He says they filled the 500 shuttle buses making trips form downtown to the track, and operations were a success.

"We had the right number of people out there. It was a well planned, well organized event," says Spillar.

CapMetro was popular with race fans--from the free bus loops downtown to the MetroRail.

"On Saturday our ridership went up 425 percent. We normally would carry 1,200 people. We carried 6,300 people," says CapMetro communications manager Francine Pares.

Although not all businesses like those on South Congress Avenue weren't so fortunate, Chebultz hopes next time around, visitors will venture down their way.

"We didn't get to meet goals, and it was a bad weekend," he said.

Others like Chebultz say the emphasis put on all of the downtown festivities possibly kept visitors from heading out to South Congress Avenue.

Also, they think a lot of local people avoided getting out much at all in fear of traffic or big crowds.