As John Lieberman mentioned, Texas already has a great country club
track and another going up soon. The MotorSport Ranch
(http://www.motorsportranch.com/secondary.html) is located about 15 miles
south of Ft. Worth. There are two classes of memberships, permanent garages,
a covered grid area (nice for Texas summers), and a control tower that
controls the track by short range FM radio. A clubhouse is going up with
showers, restaurant, etc. The course is about 1.8 miles with 11 turns. I
drove it in September at a Porsche lapping event and it is a hoot. It has
already hosted a Viper Club race, a motorcycle race, and the first weekend
of December will see karts racing the course.
But the mother of them all is about to be started in Gunter, TX, about
45 miles north of Dallas. A Dallas high roller has bought about 400 acres of
prime real estate directly in the path of Dallas' expansion north. Half of
the land will be used to put in a high end housing development. The property
has a lake of about 40 acres. On the other side of the lake the other half
of the property will be used to construct a road course complex called
GunterRing. The track could actually be used as three separate courses, but
combined it will run about 4 miles in length. Plans include the usual
garages and clubhouse, but also will include motorsport businesses.
Supposedly Greg Ray, the CART (or is it IRL?) driver, is on board to locate
his operation there. The track will even include an area that is permanently
wet for learning traction control. A friend of mine is doing the publicity
work on the project and showed me the track design which has just been
completed. Construction is to start next spring. I believe that memberships
are now at $30,000, but makes you a partner in the entire development, not
just the track.
There is also a new road course being built south of Houston, GrandSport
Speedway, and one in the planning stages north of Houston. That's in
addition to the road course being built in the infield of the Texas Motor
Speedway NASCAR track in Ft. Worth which will host a Petit Le Mans race next
September, and the venerable 2.8 mile course at Texas World Speedway in
College Station. After so many years of having only one road track, Texas
may soon have six!
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