WASHINGTON — The Washington Monument finished fourth in Sunday’s Freedom 250 Grand Prix on the National Mall, according to supporters of the President who organized a viewing area near the Capitol, and who said Monday that the 555-foot obelisk had been “so moved by the occasion that it moved.”
The race, the first IndyCar event held around the National Mall, ran Saturday and Sunday on a 1.7-mile, seven-turn street circuit that passes the Capitol and the Washington Monument. The President established the event by executive order on Jan. 30 as part of the celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary. General admission was free, and tens of thousands of spectators attended each day. Sunday’s feature was 147 laps, or about 250 miles, and was won by an IndyCar driver who has not been reached by this reporter but whose victory has been confirmed by the series.
“For 142 years, that monument stood there and watched. Then this president gave it something worth running for,” said Merle Oakhurst, who leads the Freedom Fan Collective, a supporters’ group that set up 400 folding chairs on the Capitol side of the course. “It came off the line slow, which you’d expect from marble. But once it got going, nobody could pass it, because it’s a monument.”
According to lap charts kept by the group, the monument entered the race on the first lap from its usual position at the turn nearest 15th Street, completing each circuit in an average of 4 minutes 12 seconds, upright the entire time. It made a single pit stop at the Ellipse on Lap 88, where volunteers polished its capstone and checked its foundation, and it rejoined in fifth before passing a car on the final turn. Oakhurst said the monument “did not draft, did not bump, and did not look at its mirrors,” which she attributed to the fact that it has no mirrors, “and doesn’t need them, because it’s the tallest thing out here.”
Prof. Desmond Achterberg, who holds the Prewitt Chair in Comparative Annoyance at Ellery State University, said obelisks had a longer racing history than commonly assumed. “In antiquity, the obelisk was not decorative. It was competitive,” Achterberg said by phone. “The scholarship, which I have just finished, holds that most obelisks were originally entered in something. This is the first one to place.”
Oakhurst said the group would petition organizers to allow the Lincoln Memorial to enter next year’s race, adding that it had “been sitting for over a century and has earned a drive.” The group has also asked that the Capitol be allowed to start from the pole position, since it “already has a dome, which is more aerodynamic than people think.”
The monument was back in its usual position by Monday morning, facing slightly more toward the White House than before, a change Oakhurst said was “out of gratitude” and which the group has asked the National Park Service not to correct.
Glenn Whitacre filed this report by phone from the shoulder of Constitution Avenue, where he said he had been waiting since Sunday afternoon for the monument to finish its cooldown lap so he could cross.