Looking for advice and feedback for starting a road course

One suggestion Manda racing. Add Barber Motorsports Park and VIR to your bucket list, very worthwhile venues.

 

Monticello Motor Club, and maybe one or two other tracks in the USA, are financially solvent.

The best business model is to let someone else build the track and then buy it out of bankruptcy.

 

+1 on this.
That $300m investment for the track in Utah? (And remember, that didn't include the 500 acres it sat on, as it was a not owned, but rather a conditional-use lease) After Larry's death, was eventually handed back to the county, and the Miller group walked away. The county subsequently sold the entire property: 500 acres and $300m in developments, for under $20m. (it's a longer story than that, but those are the pertinent facts to the point)

 

A little update. We have been working on the final layout of the track. As of now it's 2.2 miles with 20+ turns (4 that will have you pucker up). I believe it will be a very exciting track. I have attached a few pictures to show you that this isn't some field with cows in it. There are millions of dollars of existing infrastructure already on site. We are having an open house on May 17th from 11 - 2 if you are in the area or know anyone in the area that may want to come out and have a look. We are really down to finding enough members to join and it's a go.


Thanks for the feed back.

 

Bendrover that’s great, I hope you find your members for this track, I really do. I say it again, with the track design please keep in mind the great successful tracks and there lay out.

Those great tracks flow, have fun and competitive turns. The more turns doesn’t make a great track. Just thinking out loud here but 20 something turns in 2 miles can be frustrating to drivers and fans watching if there is no flow to the track.

 

Please forgive me if I'm having a difficult time determining if you're serious about this. I've seen first hand Many, MANY , aborted road course attempts. And I've been involved in the development and construction of a successful one. That you have the LAND already puts you ahead of MOST of the failed attempts; but not all.

If you'd like, I can put you in touch with Alan Wilson, who is a personal friend of mine. If you don't know who Alan Wilson is, then you might want to consider some continued research into other successful racetracks around the world. Modeling your plan after a successful venture (as opposed to a failed one) is not the worst idea.

The land does look very, very appealing for a track, with some natural elevation.

I wish I were closer.


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Congrats on the progress!

Yes 20 turns is A LOT of turns for 2.2 miles.

The 3 shortest tracks (that are still good quality) that I know:
Lime Rock 1.5 miles has 7 turns
MoSport/Canadian Tire Motorsports Park is a short track at 2.5 and has 10 turns (admittedly each corner is a big/long corner).
Road Atlanta 2.5 and has 12 turns.

The track with the most turns that I can think of regardless of distance (in USA) is COTA with 20 turns in 3.5 miles.

Only you and the designer know how it flows but consider adding some longer straights and fewer corners.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I believe we have it down to 20 turns now and I feel like it flows really well. When we drive it with the ATV's it's A LOT of fun! I realize an ATV is different then a car, but I would hope the car will be 10X's more exciting. We have had a few guys out that have a decent amount of road racing experience and one that has NASCAR truck series / track experience and he is super excited with the layout. We are going to get a lot of feedback this Sunday during our open house. As of now we have 170+ coming or interested in coming. If we can get 50 -100 to show up I feel like it will be a great first turnout.

 

I agree 100% with this. When I used to run my Viper ACR, I would not run the shorter, many turn tracks, it was the wrong car for that. If you are looking for higher end clients, most will have higher HP cars and will want to run higher speeds, your course might not cater to them.

 

Cool beans! Do you have a website where we can follow progress? How have you advertised to get these interested parties involved?

What's the longest straight you've got in your layout? Thinking about the tracks I've frequented, 2.2 miles with 20 turns seems really "busy". Others have noted the same, but I'm not a designer, I just drive, haha.

One of my favorite track configurations is 2.25 miles with 14 turns, but of those, several are really one turn with more than one apex. You drive it like there's 9 turns. So maybe you've got some of that sort of thing going on, making up your 20 turns?

We've got a pretty tight little kart track out here that I've taught sportbike and supermoto schools on. It's 1 mile with 10 turns. It's not conducive to cars at all.

I guess you've whet my appetite and I'm being for more details! Haha

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To help visualize the expected speeds here are the average speeds at almost most tracks IMSA and SRO uses (not top speed but average speed)

85-95 mph in a street car (depending on car)
100 mph in a GT4 car (top speed is usually between 155-165mph)
105-110 mph for a GT3 car (top speed is usually between 165-175mph)

You should be very close to these benchmarks, the slowest tracks will be 10% less and the fastest track 10% more. I went through many of them and they all fall in the same range regardless of track and distance.

 

Best of luck, I echo the sentiment that more tracks are great. But, that is too short for that many turns- tight and technical is not all that fun. VIR /Road Atlanta are fun because they flow.. Roebling is okay, I like it, not the same. Take out turns for your main course, you can always add chicanes/ cut throughs later.
Perhaps get a pro track designer involved.

 

My suggestion is to not forget about motorcycles. However, I do not think there is enough runoff room for bikes. Good luck with it.


One question I would consider: Would it be more profitable (Less risky) to build a GoKart track instead? This track seems very tight.

 

Or since you have a dirt track.... how about a Dirt Kart track?