For Sale: One Test Track, Never Used Enthusiastically
by
Jack Baruth
Published: January 14th, 2011
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Are you interested in owning your own 7.5-mile high-speed oval and five-mile road course? What about an off-road racing course for motorcycles and Baja trucks? It looks like Honda’s finally come up with a product that appeals to enthusiasts… but they only have one of them, and the pricing is likely to be even more outrageous than the window sticker on the ZDX. Check out the listing here.
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$2.1 mil sounds on the low side i would think 4,000 acres by itself is way more than that
It would be worth a lot more, IF Californians still had private property rights. Honda bailed because just getting permits to maintain parts of the place meant having to file compliance plans with Desert Tortoise Habitat Protection initiatives and agreements to stop using huge tracts of the property for anything. Owning it will be a bloody burden for anyone other than the chosen crony of the villains in Sacramento. For that guy, it will open the flood gates to the taxpayers' credit line. He'll drown in cost plus subsidies for a unicorn fart energy farce, we'll get the bills.
If this property gets used for its intended pruposes (more or less) I'd say that its suited for LeMans/ALMS, GRAND-AM races and SCCA events. It would also be good for Moto racing, and any form of off roading. If the state will allow it. Its far too undeveloped for a NASCAR event, though it would be interesting to see a 500 mile race run on a 7.5 mile track. That comes out to 66.6 laps for the race. Maybe they could call it "the beast' 500. More likely it would be a rather dull race given how far the pack would be spread out. It might suit an IRL race if the road course were shortended a bit. Definitely not for Formula One, the closest Bernie Ecclstone would get to this place is Rodeo Drive.
I wish that everyone could experience driving on a test track like this. Back in the 90's when I was selling Audis, Brand specialists were invited to go the VW proving ground track near Phoenix and drive all the different models. We were given a speed limit of 110mph, it was a hoot driving with hands off the wheel going into the banked curves on the track which was about 4 miles long and having the car stay in its lane. The test drivers we talked to said that they had A8's cruising at 160mph with the speed governor off. This experience really helped build enthusaism for selling the brand.