Formula 1 has never raced in Miami before 2022 but plenty of other forms of motorsport have been active there – some even using the banner of the ‘Grand Prix of Miami’ long before F1 came to town.
Miami used to play host to a downtown street race event, promoted by Cuban-American businessman Ralph Sanchez, that started with a layout in Bayfront Park for IMSA sportscars to race along the public roads of Biscayne Boulevard in 1983.
The 1985 and 1986 IMSA Camel GT events were extensively filmed for an episode of Michael Mann’s cop drama Miami Vice, in which Danny Sullivan (runner-up with AJ Foyt in Miami in 1986) made his acting debut. The episode had a false start, when Mann tried (and failed) to land Mick Jagger to play this role!
In the episode – entitled Florence Italy – Sullivan plays Danny Tepper who pilots the Lowenbrau-sponsored Porsche 962 that was driven to victory in the actual 1985 race by Al Holbert and Derek Bell (who makes a cameo appearance). Accused of murdering a sex worker, who is hurled to her death from a speeding Porsche Carrera 6, fictional cops Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) and Ricardo Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) discover that the real culprit is Tepper’s father Frank, who is racing against his son in a March 84G – driven in the real event by none other than two-time world champion Emerson Fittipaldi and Tony Garcia.
“Miami’s always been fun for me,” says Sullivan, who was also a winner in the 1980s at the nearby Tamiami Park in the CART Indycar Series, driving for Roger Penske. “It’s been a great motorsport city mainly because of the late Ralph Sanchez. He was the guy who put on those great events.
“I ended up shooting Miami Vice – it really is a fabulous place, with a lot of South and Central American and European influence – and I think it helped that the city was very car-centric. We shot the scenes at the track right on Biscayne Boulevard. The town was good to me – great restaurants, great nightlife,…
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