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[WGD706]

A new US road circuit project between Richmond and Norfolk, VA, has been approved by a one-vote margin by the local New Kent County civic authority. The US$54m, 600-acre DragonsRidge Motorsports Park development will include a 3-mile road course and a 1-mile kart track. The developer, Dominion Land Ventures of Hampton, VA, also proposes retail, office and resort development, including a racing school. DragonsRidge general manager Jeff Booth said the track could open in March 2006.
'Autosport'

[random]

This track has been talked about for ages.

This is a big hurdle it's managed to surmount, I thought the NIMBY crowd would do it in. But I still wonder if they've got enough funding to actually build it. It would be a nice addition to the other Virginia road courses. And it would by far be the closest to a major metro center. And right off the highway as well.

newspaper article

track site

[mattybinyon]

How many motorsports country clubs can the area handle?

They're only 150-ish miles from VIR which has quite a head start on amenities and and a great history.

No disrespect to Alan Wilson, I like driving his courses, but VIR is a world of difference and Alan's snake coiled back on itself designs pale in comparison to VIR. For reference of Alan's designs see Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds, AL, CMP in Kershaw, SC & Arizona Motorsports Park which has currently suspended operations because of the NIMBYs. Thus it's not always a done deal even if you do get it zoned and built.

[random]

Originally posted by mattybinyon
How many motorsports country clubs can the area handle?

They're only 150-ish miles from VIR which has quite a head start on amenities and and a great history.

No disrespect to Alan Wilson, I like driving his courses, but VIR is a world of difference and Alan's snake coiled back on itself designs pale in comparison to VIR. For reference of Alan's designs see Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds, AL, CMP in Kershaw, SC & Arizona Motorsports Park which has currently suspended operations because of the NIMBYs. Thus it's not always a done deal even if you do get it zoned and built.

Even if this track isn't as nice as VIR, it could have equal or greater potential. The reason is location, location, location.

Dragon's Ridge will be less than 30 minutes from downtown Richmond, an hour or so from the VA Beach/Norfolk area, and only 2 hours from the DC area. So unlike VIR and many other tracks, Dragon's Ridge would be close to a lot of major metropolitan areas and would also have major interstate highways leading right to the track's doorstep.

As for how many of these "Motorsport's Clubs" the area can support, I think it certainly could support another. Especially as VIR seems to have wandered a good distance from their initial goal of being a motorsport club. Every year VIR seems to have fewer and fewer days reserved for club members. The member dates given are far from choice as most are stuck in the cold and rainy parts of the calendar. (only 2 member weekends during the whole summer!) The track is clearly giving preference to the non-member driving clubs and professional race events. I guess the track reservations help pay the bills, but if I were now a member of VIR, I wouldn't be a member much longer.

VIR has had problems from the start in getting members, largely because of the location. It's not close enough to anywhere with a substantial population. 4 to 6 hours is drivable, but most people don't want to drive that far in the morning and again back home in the evening. They'd end up having to book a hotel each and every time they wanted to use this club they belong to, for most, that's not what a club is all about.

If they'd been more focused on this reality, they probably would had member vehicle-storage garages and workshop space available from the start. I understand the first few garages are now ready, although I strongly suspect the rental fees will be many times higher than what one could get at a typical u-store-it.

Then consider that the population contained in a 1 hour driving circle around VIR is probably less than 150,000. While the population in a similar 1 hour driving circle around the proposed Dragon's Ridge location is in excess of 2.5 Million! Expand that driving distance to 2 hours, and much of the Metro DC population falls into Dragon's Ridge range, while VIR gains only sleepy Lynchburg.

The track design? I'd have to agree fully on that point, the map I saw some time ago was quite 'uninspiring'. If I recall correctly, the priority seemed to be filling the property with race-track, rather than designing a great track. But still, given the choice of a great track, many hours away and requiring a hotel stay, opposed to a 'decent' track, minutes away, I suspect I'd run a lot more laps at the closer track. If the closer track were really focused on member-needs, I may even join that club.

Another point I noticed, the Dragon's Ridge NIMBY's received quite a major concession of a 60 DB noise maximum at the property line of the track. As the track should fill most of the property, this limit would seem to preclude it being able to host many of the professional events like those at VIR.

But bottom line, tracks like this are a lot easier said than done. You're right in not to underestimate the NIMBYs. And the 50 million dollar budget isn't peanuts. Neither will make a development like this easy to pull off.

[Rob G]

Originally posted by random
Then consider that the population contained in a 1 hour driving circle around VIR is probably less than 150,000. While the population in a similar 1 hour driving circle around the proposed Dragon's Ridge location is in excess of 2.5 Million! Expand that driving distance to 2 hours, and much of the Metro DC population falls into Dragon's Ridge range, while VIR gains only sleepy Lynchburg.

FWIW, I live in Raleigh, NC, and it takes me an hour and 15 minutes to drive to VIR. As of 2002 the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area had over 1.26 million people.

[random]

Hmm, I'd checked Raleigh Durham and it came up as 450k, perhaps it didn't count the surrounding areas, but I was quite conservative and didn't count many surrounding areas in the Dragon's Ridge numbers either.

I used mapquest for distances. They put Raleigh firmly in the 2+ hour driving distance from VIR. I'm sure it could be done faster, but so could any distance.

But even accepting those higher numbers, the proposed location of this new track has far more nearby metro areas, and of far greater size and much better highway access. And if we're considering 2 hours driving times like Raleigh from VIR, the 8 million of the DC metro area would be just as close to this new track.

Bottom line, there's really question this proposed track has many more times the nearby population as compared to a track like VIR. And perhaps more importantly, this new track will be in the suburbs of a major metro area. Whose residents would probably make up a significant proportion of the members. These motorsports clubs cost a lot of money, dues of over $1,000 per year. I think people are a lot more likely to join a club only minutes away, one that they can drop by any time, than they are to join a club 4, 3 or even just 2 hours away.