Surfers Paradise is situated on the Gold Coast, in Queensland, Australia. The Gold Coast is a 35 kilometre stretch of beaches running north from the New South Wales - Queensland border and is virtually one continuous development of high rise hotels, making it the most commercialised resort in Australia. Although most of the action is based around Surfers Paradise itself, the central Gold Coast is a beach front playground and shopper's paradise rolled into one, where you will find international hotels, restaurants and night-clubs. The course itself is a 2.79-mile temporary street course with nine turns and a race length of 65 laps covering 181.675 miles.
The Indy Car Grand Prix in Surfers Paradise will be remembered as the first CART overseas event. It took place in 1991, where first-time winner John Andretti took the chequered flag for the newly formed Hall-VDS team. PPG Cup champion, Michael Andretti (John's cousin) set records at every turn in one of the most competitive Indy Car seasons ever.
One of the most dramatic incidents to happen at Surfers Paradise occurred in 1996 when a scheduled pit stop for Bryan Herta went drastically awry. There was a near-disaster in the pits when a raised tank of methanol tipped over during the pit stop. Pit workers from Herta's team and others on either side threw large buckets of water on the spilled methanol and two pit crew members, one from Herta's team and the other from Bobby Rahal's crew who came to assist were treated for minor injuries at the track medical centre. The incident happened when Herta edged away from the pits with the hose still in the car. That brought the tank crashing down over the wall, spilling methanol on the ground and on to Herta, who was also doused with water. He pulled out of the race.
Past winners have included Emerson Fittipaldi in 1992, Nigel Mansell in 1993,Michael Andretti in 1994, Paul Tracy in 1995, Jimmy Vasser in 1996 and most recently Scott Pruett in 1997. For Pruett, the 1997 win at Surfers Paradise was the final step in what had been a three year visit to the IndyCarnival podium. In his first visit with Patrick at Surfers in 1995, Pruett had finished a strong third. One year later Pruett improved to take second place in Australia for the Patrick crew. After completing the opening lap of the 1997 race at Surfers, Christian Fittipaldi was involved in a bad accident. The red flag was shown and the race was restarted. Fittipaldi was hit from behind by De Ferran causing him to hit the wall in front of the pit, at the beginning of the pit straight. He sustained a fracture to his lower right leg and was transported to the Gold Coast Hospital to undergo surgery.
The four-day attendance total of 226,130 also set an event record.
