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New Track

aeronca65t

Great Pumpkin
Offline
OK, this is not uniquely "British", but it's about a new track in the eastern US and British cars may certainly end up running there (Scott ran some laps there in his Spridget yesterday). I posted a similar note on "The Pub".

We have a new track here in New Jersey and it's not the New Jersey Motorsports Park (NJMP) in the Southern part of our state; it's a new track next to the Raceway Park Dragstrip in Englishtown, NJ (roughly in the middle of NJ)

For now everyone seems to be calling it the "E-town Road Course".
Here's a video of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LN3NCrecuw

It's *really* tight, but one of the tech guys said that there's 10 configurations and some are a lot straighter (but supposedly the "best" is less than 1.0 miles long).

They set up the most twisty configuration for this test day, since many drivers had never done this type of thing before and they wanted to keep speeds down (I'd guess at least half were drag racers).

A stock, new MINI following me had telemetry on board and he said the average lap speed was about 40 mph. I used third gear (to 7200 rpm) on the straight and mostly second gear (again, 7000+ rpm) in most turns.
I had a pretty good race around the track with a Mitsu Evo that normaly runs Audi Club and PCS events. This Evo had 410 HP to the wheels (!!!). I came with my snow tires mounted on the rear, since I'm temporarily having a problem with one of my Yoko E100 summer tires. The Miata was tail-happy to say the least (I spun 180 degreees the first lap)

The place is a bit too tight, but still, a track's a track, so I hope that road racers can make *some* use of this place. Not sure.
Maybe small bore, pre-war vintage or Time Trial only.
Or maybe an Open Track Day or low-key "tuning day" limited to 35 cars or so. Bigger cars really struggled... ..it's more "Sprite sized" or "Mini sized".

I didn't care for pit out (in this configuration) and I didn't see any real flag stations either. Lots of details still remain.

Still, although it's not a great venue, I hate to ignore it. Maybe someone can look at it and see if they can figure out a creative way to utilize it. NASCAR started running on crappy little 1/4 dirt "bullrings" years ago.....*look* where they are today! (I'm watching the Pocono NASCAR race on TV right now.......I ran the Escort there last weekend. The place is *huge* and amazing.)

E-town may end up a drifting track, if none of the road race groups run on it. I hope the road race community doesn't pile on and criticize this place the way that they have with the Shenandoah circuit at Summit Point. Shenandoah is probably one of my favourite tracks, but a number of "internet experts" (who've likely never run there) have trashed that place as a "go kart track" (it's a zillion times better than Lime Rock, for example).
The E-town track has a lot of areas for expansion if it is supported (they own a lot of the nearby property)

For those of you who are pilots , the E-town Road Course is walking distance to "3N6".

One thing: it's an easy and cheap tow for folks in the NY-Metro area....and there are a ton of racers in that area.

The rental is $12K for two-day weekends and $15 for Fri, Sat and Sunday. Weekdays are $3K to $5K (I think).
Since NJMP and Watkins Glen are close to $60K rental for three days, it is at least "value priced". But Pocono isn't a ton more and is much better.

There was lots of neat cars there (lots of Cobras) but also some truly dumb cars too.

There's more info here (click on Road Course):
https://www.etownraceway.com/
 
IMHO no new track is a bad thing!!! The more, the better! Central Jersey certainly needs one and E-town is a natural as far as location. It's a start!!! :thumbsup:
 
Like Nial Said it did run real slow but I sadi there were 90% of the drivers that never turned a wheel on a road coarse before. As I understand this was being run backwards as well. I'd love to see it straighter and run in counter clockwise before Id pass judgement. I think it was in the best interest to keep things slow. According to the track manager they plan to keep the prices down and start there own club and a driving school as well as a drifting school. If the track is successful they planm to clear the tree line behind it and open it up to a 3 mile course in the next year or so. Heres some pics. I had some camcorder programming issues so that didint take off to well.
RacewayPark1.jpg

RacewayPark3-1.jpg

RacewayPark-1.jpg
 
Thanks for the pictures...and glad you got out there, even if it was only for a little bit.

I suspected that they will try to expand if the track if it's supported by racers....I know they own a lot more land there. But I had not heard about any expansion, so your comments by the track manager is good news.
Actually, if they run the track (instead of local clubs) it might be a good thing. [/crossing my fingers that the place succeeds]
 
It is very location freindly (for us) any ways. It'd be nice to have two NJ tracks to run. (Although I wouldnt mind a certain ski montain going by the wayside in room for Revco.)
 
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