There was only a week between the Canadian and United States East Grand Prix and so there was little time for much change. Guy Edwards had stood down from Hesketh with Brazilian Alex Ribeiro taking over while Wolf Williams was without Chris Amon (who had hurt himself in Canada) and so Australian Warwick Brown was given the drive in an old Hesketh.

The World Championship gap between Niki Lauda and James Hunt was down to just eight points and Hunt was looking strong as he set pole position, ahead of Jody Scheckter (Tyrrell), Ronnie Peterson and Vittorio Brambilla (March) ahead of Lauda and their team mate Hans-Joachim Stuck. The top 10 was completed by Patrick Depailler (Tyrrell), John Watson (Penske), Tom Pryce (Shadow) and Carlos Pace (Brabham-Alfa Romeo).

In the race Scheckter made the best start and took the lead with Brambilla grabbing third from Peterson. Lauda followed. In the early laps Scheckter and Hunt were able to pull away while Lauda worked his way ahead of both Peterson and Brambilla to take third position. Towards half-distance Hunt closed up on Scheckter and took the lead but Hunt made a mistake and Scheckter got ahead again and it was not until the 46th lap that Hunt took the lead again.

Further back the action was more intense with fourth place passing from Peterson to Depailler and then to Laffite.

On lap 15 there was nasty accident when Ickx crashed the Ensign, head-on into the guardrail. The car split in two and caught fire but amazingly Ickx was able to hobble away with only a broken ankle and a few minor burns.

Later Laffite went out with a puncture after running over debris. Moments later Brambilla did the same and so Mass found himself fourth with Stuck fifth and Watson sixth.

Hunt's victory closed the World Championship gap to just three points as the F1 circus headed off to Japan for the first time.