Red Hook may look like a neighborhood out of time — a semi-industrial patch of broken cobblestone streets, vacant lots, derelict piers and the largest public housing complex in Brooklyn.

But this weekend, it will claim its cosmopolitan place alongside Monaco, Marrakesh and Paris, when as many as 18,000 spectators are expected to descend on the neighborhood each day for a rare glimpse at professional auto racing in New York City. The ePrix is hosted by Formula E and will resemble a Formula One race, except that electricity will be powering the 20 cars speeding along the Red Hook waterfront.

The neighborhood does have some experience with this sort of event. The Red Hook Crit — an annual fixed-gear bicycle race that began in 2008 — now draws thousands of spectators. And several businesses located on the main commercial strip, Van Brunt Street, are already gearing up for the ePrix.

Pierre Alexandre, an owner of the year-old Dolce Brooklyn gelato shop, is boosting production, and his wife, Kristina Frantz, also an owner as well as a gelato chef, has designed a special flavor for the event: Soul Fuel, which is made with Italian espresso beans, noir espresso chocolate chips and a drop of glycerin, a nod to the ingredient that fuels the generators powering Formula E cars. (Dolce’s glycerin is produced naturally from saltwater algae, so it’s sustainable, organic and edible.)