New Track going in in Washington State

But pretty sure. All of the zoning and noise issues have been addressed and approved by county council. Special use permit is last thing to go, should happen in about 90 days.

Property clearing will hopefully begin in 30-45 days, the soil drains extremely well.

Track will run counter (or anti) clockwise, the ridge is dimensionally the same heighth and degree as the Laguna Corkscrew.

Hope that helps.

 

Nascar was in Bremerton this isn't. Noise restrictions wont matter where this is going. There is nothing for a few miles. I believe also the Bremerton citizens voted against it. Idiots they are. 100 million worth of business in their area seems to be pretty good news to me why it wasn't to them I have no clue.


This ridge must be massive I am looking forward to seeing the layout and real elevations myself.

 

This is a very good feature.

 

You're pretty close Mark. The Nascar track was going to be in Kitsap county and this new one is in Mason County. BIG difference. Ask anyone who has built a house in both counties.

I don't think it was ever up for a vote here though. As I recall it was the politicians who dropped the ball at the state and county level. While I'm not much of a Nascar fan I was certainly in favor of the track, would have been fun to have in my back yard!!

I don't think the economic impact of this new track will be nearly as large but it will still be a boon to the pretty small local economy in Shelton!

Oh and technically I don't live IN Bremerton so I don't qualify as one of the above referenced "idiots".


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If memory serves, the real big problem was the lack of infrastructure such as roads and hotels. Not nearly enough of either.

 

I think the roads and hotels would have been fairly easy to fix. The real problem was the shortsightedness of certain elected officials. As usual po-dunk small town politics were not up to taking on a major project.

 

More information along with updates on progress: http://raceinmason.wordpress.com/

Add your comments supporting this project here: http://raceinmason.wordpress.com/about/

 

Let me see how many questions I can answer:

The Mason County Commissioners approved the rezone of the property. There was an issue with Mazama Pocket Gophers, but the habitat plan has been submitted and approved. In late winter/early spring, there will be a hearing in front of a Special Hearings Examiner for the required Special Use Permit, which determines the variables of operation (such as how many unrestricted noise events can be done per year, how many days per week can it operate, hours, etc...). A full racing schedule won't happen until 2012, but the plan is to work like madmen to get a safe, fully-functioning road course and separate drag racing strip and paddocks for one or two exhibition events by end of summer 2011.

The track will be set up for multiple configurations, so many options on running...but the standard run will be counter-clockwise. There are multiple elevation changes. And it is designed as a very, very fast track for appropriate big bore cars and drivers.

The partners in this have funding for phase one. One of the partners is a former Fcar owner. (Actually, he techinically still owns one -- the charred remains of his 512TR, which burned up when his house burned to the ground almost exactly a year ago.) He also had briefly owned a 599 GTB. Most importantly, the two partners, Rod and Joe, are really great guys. No egos or hidden agendas -- these are guys you want to hang out with and talk cars (or talk anything, for that matter.)

If anyone wants to hit me with other questions, I'm happy to answer them. (I'm actually the one who put together the RaceInMason.com and blog sites.)

There are a lot of cool things going on right now that I can't publicly talk about, but we'll have some extremely sweet virtual reality for y'all soon.

But the bottom lines are: The Ridge Motorsports Park IS happening and it is being developed by racers for racers to be the best (meaning MOST FUN AND SAFEST) place on the West Coast to come out and learn and enjoy performace driving.

 

Thanks for the info Sam! Anything any of us can do to help?

 

The most important thing will be to come out to the meeting to support the Special Use Permit hearing. The Special Hearings Examiner comes from a pool and is totally neutral -- but we need as many people to show support for usage as possible.

I'll let everyone know when that meeting is set.

The other thing to do is just "spread the word" about the new facility. The success of the Ridge Motorsports Park relies on clubs using the facility. Everyone is confident that it will become the place to come for driving schools, club track days, test and tune days, club races, autocrosses, etc..., but it is important for people to start thinking about planning their events in Shelton, rather than other venues. (The fact that the current Ridge business plan pinpoints better pricing than PR should certainly help ).

If you know of a track day company or marque club that does a lot of track days and they haven't already heard from us, let me know. We're trying to get input of special needs from all the organizers of track events (for both road course and drag race.) With such wide interest in high performance driving in the NW, it's possible we've overlooked a newer club. (We have all the known driving schools, racing groups (four and two wheel varieties), and track day-loving clubs (BMW, Porsche, Alfa, and others), but there's always a new group in formation -- so if you know of one, let me know.)

And just by the way: you couldn't blueprint a better site for racing: tons of elevation change, totally naturally beautiful, no real residential areas for miles, an airport two miles away, a hotel/casino fifteen minutes down the road, downtown Shelton just seven minutes away (and ALL of Shelton's businesses are behind us 100-percent!) Plus, you won't find a more car-crazy area than Mason County (the city shuts off streets for car shows multiple times per year!)

 

If you need an investor and I can get a loop de loop into the track, I'm IN!

 

The big problem (not counting the local NIMBY politics) with the NASCAR proposal was that at the time, the estimated cost was $368 million, and Great Western Sports, a subsidiary of International Speedway Corp., wanted to get the State of Washington to pay for about half - $180 million. Like most projects that private parties want taxpayers to subsidize, the underlying analysis was BS - they claimed that the project would have generated $4 billion for the state and created "thousands of jobs." The problem with that is that in virtually no real economic analysis have money-multipliers ever been close to accurate, and supporters can never explain how stealing $20.00 out of each taxpayers' pocket (yours and mine) and putting it into someone else's pocket (like Great Western Sports and the ISC) will create $444.00, as if by magic. (That is the ratio between what state taxpayers would have been forced to invest and the claimed $4 billion payout to the state).

My feeling is that for something like that, if GWS and ISC want it, they can pay for it themselves.

Pork-barrelers like U.S. Reps. Norm Dicks and Adam Smith supported the program - but it wasn't coming out of their pockets.

The same argument applies to the sorry Sonics saga. Although I miss the Sonics (well, truthfully, only just a little), the fact is that Mr. Schultz (and the current owners) wanted the whole state to subsidize their proposed new arena to the tune of $500 million. How would that have really made sense?

Now, this project would appear to make some sense since the funds appear to be coming from private sources at their own risk. I say more power to them!

 

2 weeks ago I went to a meeting about the track down in Shelton. The 2 investors (totally funded btw) talked extensively about their plans. What the time frames are and as a group we toured the track property.

They have almost every hurdle done. Very cool. March something is their final county hearing and if all goes as planned they will have pavement down August of this year.

The money guy was very interesting and his passion for this track is deep. The track itself as shown to us thru simulators will be a nice layout. His major goal is pavement not much different than ORP and their Brilliant pavement.

The track has a nice almost 1/2 mile straight at the same level as the paddock (which when fully complete will be 5 times Pacific Raceways paddock) and you will climb out of the lower elevations up through a really nice tree lined set of S-Turns. They are only 70% complete on track design and they say it will evolve all the way until pavement hits the ground. The upper level has some straights, S's, and will have some off camber turns they promise. The largest hangup in their design is the drop from the upper elevation down to the main straight. It's a sharp 45-50ft drop that won't be done easily. Their design now imho is just ok for the drop so this will be their biggest hurdle.

The 1/4 mile strip will not be part of the road course but will be across the paddock. The paddock is planned large enough that they will be able to hold Drags and Road events at the same time. Something Pacific Raceways has no chance of doing.

Overall I left really looking forward to this new track's arrival. I think it will add something the NW is really lacking. Good pavement and a good source for Play and Practice for a sport I really enjoy. It's centrally located between Portland and Seattle both about 1 1/2 hours yet it's still close enough to make it an easy day trip for Track Days, Autocross, Drivers Ed or Drag racing if that's your fancy. The 2 owners are down to earth and really excited about the project. One came to the table with the property and the other the funds to get it started.

They are basing their business strategy on Thunderhill out of Sacramento and they have brought on the track designer that worked on TH as well. His goal will be pavement August and as they progress, restrooms (non honey bucket type) garages and further down the road classrooms etc.

 

I like what I just read about that track. I'm a bit far away now but plan to move to that side of the pile of rocks down the middle of the state in a couple of years.

 

Thanks for the update Mark! Looking forward to having this so close to home!!

 

Corkscrew, Laguna style.............................

 

Well they are comparing it to that. We shall see. It's a pretty tight turn as it's drawn that will slow you down ever more than the 2nd gear turn at Laguna. The track out portion happens at the bottom of this drop as well as I mentioned making it even trickier. If they sort out the track off situation that straightaway across the paddock/hot pit area will be a lot of fun going into the up hill sweeper at the end of it heading into the woods.

 

Changed the config to have track out into hot pits 1/4 way down front straight. Nothing else was going to be safe enough.

Ridge is going to be dramatically reconfigured do to the slope angle, larger sweeper in and over and the Laguna S is the front running design right now.

Actual height of the ridge is 85 feet, so there is room to work in a 25-30 degree slope without much loss of elevation.

RP

 

Just did two days at Carolina Motorsports Park near Columbia SC. It is run like a country club with membership and dues,etc. I really like the concept and wish there was something like it locally. Large private club house with garages for your track toys. Plenty or open and covered parking(rent). Professional track with all the safety equipment required. Kart track, Snack Shack, classrooms for training. I thought the cost was very cheap for what you got and the facility. Sat was track day in the wet put we did go with slicks in the afternoon. It was cold to in the 30's. Lots of laps to heat them up. Running with slick with the wipers on is always intersting. Drier late in the day but still wet. Cool to see the tires steaming after the session. Sunday was nice and dry and we split sessions with the superbikes. Great weekend on a new track. Something like this local would be great. They rent it out for testing, corp, events etc. Speed last week did a bit about the track. Jimmy Johnson was
there and they had him do a few hot laps on the Corvette Race Car. The back straight has a kink in it and there is a bump right on the apex. Phil Wicks who I was with this weekend
told Jimmy not to hit the apex and stay 2 feet outside. Jimmy ignored him and ended up spinning the vette 12 times after hitting the bump at 155. Track is very forgiving and open.
Only place that is ugly is where they have a creek with a bridge over it. Lots of tire barriers etc but people have gotten into it. Did see a 911 going backwards at 100+ after the kink in the rain. Lucky only minor damage. Great weekend! Hooked on track time.

 

Just watched this episode on SPEED over the weekend. Jimmie Johnson and Tommy Kindall were doing the review. Jimmie was taking out the Johnny O'Connell's C6-R .

Here is the video:
http://www.corvetteblogger.com/2010/12/10/video-jimmie-johnson-driving-corvette-racings-c6-r/

Mike

 

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dr1qfg6zo_Q[/ame]

Here is the spin shown on Youtube. Interesting how they cut the vid right before he loses it. Not good for selling cars if Jimmy can't keep it pointed straight,lol.

 

Cool!

 

We're actually closing in rapidly on the last hurdle for the track, which is the special use permit hearing. I'm waiting to hear scheduling confirmation, but it will likely be March 15th (or possibly March 22nd) at the Mason County Commissioners' Chambers in Shelton.

As soon as we have a definitive time, I'll let everyone know, since it will be important to have as many people there to show support as possible.

The track will be a perfect place for F-car owners to explore the limits of our cars in a safe and fun way.