Ten o'clock in the morning and I've got Connecticut's historic Lime Rock Park racetrack to myself. I'm the only car out here, bombing around the 1.53-mile road course in a race-prepared Mazda Miata, and every straightaway and curve is gloriously empty.
When you're talking about coveted real estate, racetracks rank way up there. Daily rental fees run to the tens of thousands of dollars for private events, yet often it's impossible to find an available day, even years in advance.
In the past, one of the only options open to amateurs was to sign up for a driving school offered at the track. But in recent years, tracks operating like private golf clubs have opened around the country: Members buy into them for a sizable initiation fee and monthly dues.
In the spirit of an old dog learning new tricks, Lime Rock -- Paul Newman's local track -- has followed suit. For a $110,000 initiation fee, including taxes, the legendary Connecticut road course offers a club membership with 60 days of yearly access to the track.
The club has some 60 full members so far (there will be a cap of 300) who pay $550 in monthly dues. The membership is good for 50 years and is re-sellable. Associate memberships are also available for $27,500, good for 10 dates a year. (The track is usually open from mid-March to late November.)
Members bring their own sports cars and are allowed to loop the course at their own speeds and comfort levels. (Except in select circumstances, nobody is actually racing one another.) Instruction is available.
Rival Track
A two-hour drive from New York City, in the Berkshire foothills, Lime Rock opened in 1957. It quickly gained notoriety as a short, lighting-fast course and hosted a number of famous races. The Grand-Am GT Classic and American Le Mans Series still run here, with cars known to go as fast as 185 miles per hour. Newman took a few final laps at Lime Rock on Aug. 13, just six weeks before he died of cancer.
Lime Rock has stiff competition, however. Monticello Motor Club in Monticello, New York, opened last July. About the same distance from Manhattan, it's an entirely private club with a brand-new 4.1-mile track and a $125,000 initiation fee. I recently drove it and was impressed by the general layout, the long straightaways and substantial elevation changes. (I'll give Monticello a full review in the future.)
Lime Rock hasn't received the same amount of attention, nor will it likely add the same swank features Monticello has in the works, such as a fine-dining restaurant and a day spa.
Charming Barber
But Lime Rock has Skip Barber, a true-blue motor-sports legend, as its president. After founding the Skip Barber Racing School at Lime Rock in 1975, he was one of the first to teach driving and racing fundamentals in an organized environment. Today, the racing world is full of drivers who got their start at the school or who once served as instructors there. (Barber no longer owns the school though it still runs at Lime Rock and elsewhere.)
I got my first taste of performance driving at a Skip Barber course almost a decade ago, learning how to handle skids and follow a racing line. Lime Rock was the first track I ever drove on, and by the end of the first day I was hooked.
Barber seems pleased when I tell him this. Now 72, with a head of white hair and a charming manner, he shows me around the track which, due to the influx of capital, has been repaved for the first time since 1991.
``A friend of mine joked that the words 'smooth' and 'Lime Rock' don't belong in the same sentence,'' Barber says. The project, which cost around $5 million, will help keep the track going for another 50 years, he says.
Test Drive
Two new optional corners were also added: They're technically demanding and force drivers to enter them more slowly.
The race-spec Mazda with a roll cage is waiting for me, so I head down to find out how the track feels for myself. The last time I drove here a couple of years ago, I piloted a Ferrari F430 and the pavement was a jarring mess.
Amazingly, no other club members are driving this Thursday morning. (Weekends are busier than weekdays.) Pete Argetsinger, the club's super-experienced instructor, hops into the shotgun position. The first rule of racetrack driving is: You're never as good as you think you are. Having Argetsinger giving pointers is akin to an angel on my shoulder.
It takes 10 turns to re-memorize the blind crests and fast corners, but with Argetsinger's pointers, I'm soon touching the brakes lightly, blasting downhill underneath the bridge and onto the main straight with the gas pedal pegged to the floor. Lime Rock was never as fun -- or incredibly smooth -- as this.
Whether Lime Rock can compete with Monticello is partly answered by the thrill of driving a track with so much history. And while Monticello's course has a longer, more leisurely setup, Lime Rock's is as quick as a roller coaster and so demanding that you can never let your attention flag.
Besides, if it was good enough for Newman, it's certainly good enough for me.
