Have you heard about this place: Alpine Motorsports Park?

It's 75 miles north of Philly and 75 miles west of NYC. When done (they don't say when that will be, but they expect to break ground next spring), it will have a 4-mile road course with nine possible configurations, plus a clubhouse, pool, garages, car wash, self-serve gas station, etc., etc.

They're holding open houses and "rallies" this month to get people to sign up as founding "signature members" to the private club.

The deal is structured like a country club: you give them an application fee of $3,000, then an additional $30,000 (yes, thirty thousand dollars), plus $4,000 per year in membership fees. (The annual fee may go up after two years.) In return you get up to 240 days of track time a year and other benefits. At the end of ten years, you get back $22,500 of your $30,000 (without interest) and remain a member.

Fortunately, at 200 miles away, it's too far from me (and way too expensive) to be really tempting. But I'm interested to know if they will have lesser membership options and if they plan to rent the track to outside groups. They make no mention of those possibilities on the Web site.

What do you think?

 

Damn Alan Wilson...

Guy must be making a KILLING designing all these tracks that never get off the ground. LOL

You either love his designs or hate them... or love part of a track and hate the other part in the case of CMP

 

yeah, whatever happened to the two tracks spose to be going in here in NC..

that's an interesting idea to get money, i suppose. which racers have 30k laying around to go to a racetrack... and only get back 22.5 without interest... and calculating inflation at 4% a year... (or were you saying 22.5k + interest??)

i'm sure there will be alot of angry wives, however.

maybe i underestimate the cash flow of most racers.

 

Which ones? Between NC and VA, I think there's no less than four new proposals... I can think of three off the top of my head:

High Rock International http://www.highrockinternational.com/
Advanced Vehile Research of NC: http://www.avrnc.com/index.htm
DragonsRidge: http://www.dragonsridge.com

Wasn't there another VA track being proposed somewhere?

 

I just talked to them. The clubhouse, a renovated home, is complete, and they have a road around the perimeter of the property. They expect to start construction on the rest of the facility around Thanksgiving. It'll take a year, so they should be open for the 2008 season.

They expect to have a total of 1,200 members when they open, but have room for 1,700. They had a lower-price associate membership, but it's full and wait-listed.

There's someone on-site seven days a week, so you can go out and visit anytime. They've been having "rallies" each weekend, but they're just a sales pitch and lunch, nothing to do with motorsports.

Finally, for those of us for whom membership at any level probably isn't practical, they say they have track rental arrangements with 13 car clubs, so the unwashed masses can run the track with them.

 

Pool? What does a track need with a Pool? I want to see pictures of the first car that ends up in it !

The concept sound like it could work for everyone. Track heads get all the days they could possibly want, the club house might keep the wifes happy and this ensures the Track actually makes money.

I just could not see forking out that kind of money to drive the same track all the time.

 

What town is that near? Sounds like it's very close to where my parents live (Easton, PA).

Just looked up the link. Maybe 20 minutes drive from my folks place! I might have to visit home more often!

 

No kidding. Although I have to say that MMP in Utah turned out allright.

As for the track/country club idea, it certainly seems to be the hot new thing, but I'm not sure I can see the idea having much staying power. Sure, we're currenly in 'the era of the track day' (according to AutoWeek), which gives it some cultural appeal, but what's going to happen when all those doctors/lawyers/etc get bored of driving around the same track all the time, and go back to golf?

 

That track looks yummy. Its probably not to far from me either.