For months now, we have heard about how thousands upon thousands of ritzy foreigners will be descending on Austin this weekend for the F1 races, and the havoc that this will play on an already stressed transportation grid. As a result, at least judging from social media chatter, many, many locals decided it would be best to just stay in.

Amusingly, this led to what appeared to be a very quiet downtown Austin. Whatever extra traffic appeared thanks to the addition of Euro racing fans was offset by a lack of Austinites. Well, that’s my unscientific theory, anyway. Aside from a noticeably higher volume of helicopter traffic, the roads were smooth sailing between at least 6 and 11 p.m. last night. I’m not sure how crowded Rainey Street normally is, since it is not part of my regular social rotation, but finding price-gouged parking was quite easy, and getting out of the parking lot later in the night was also easy.

It wasn’t just Rainey Street, either. If Twitter is any indication, the West Sixth Street and Red River scenes were both quiet as well.

Wow. West Sixth Street very quiet. Seems like Austin’s ancillary entertainment districts have not been discovered by F1 visitors.

— Michael Barnes (@outandabout) November 18, 2012

@outandabout Red River had ample parking all nite last night as well.F1 scared off regulars, hoping for better tonight

— Elysium (@ElysiumAustin) November 18, 2012

My advice to you, Austinites, is to get back out there. We are allegedly overwhelmed by obscenely wealthy foreigners who are trying to decide if Austin is a good market on which to drop a buttload of money. If this city can handle more than a week of South by Southwest traffic, we can handle two days of F1. Get back out there and be weird.

Photo credit: “First lap 2001 Canada” by Paul Lannuier from Sussex, NJ, USA (Lap 1) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 or CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.