Grassroots Motorsports

DEC 2014

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been hosting HPDE track events around the coun- try. Bringing some of them home to Bowling Green begins to make fnancial sense to NCM Executive Director Wendell Strode. All he needs is a track. It's 2007. Out of the blue, the owner of a 20-acre plot tucked into the I-65 curve across from the museum contacts Strode. She's willing to sell. "I thought the price ($15,000 an acre) and location made it a good investment, even if we just hung on to it," he remembers. Soon, another 50 acres becomes available. Strode puts it all under option. Could a mere 70 acres support a proper track? A cursory NCM examination responds with a resounding "No," along with a proposal from renowned race track architect Alan Wilson to do one right. Gold-Plated Everything Fast-forward to 2009. Wilson is awarded a $10,000 contract to prepare a preliminary plan. Strode quietly intensifes an effort to option more real estate. He has 186 acres tied up by the time the Wilson layout becomes a discussion item at an NCM board meeting in 2010. Coincidentally, Fehan is in town. Strode asks him to sit in. "I remember being just dumbfounded at the enormity," says Fehan later. "Four hun- dred acres. A maze of big tracks and little ones. Gold-plated everything. Wendell asked me what I thought. I told him it was a $250 million project and I wouldn't live long enough to see it done. "That's when I committed our race engineers to work with NCM people to come up with something more realistic." If there's a true genesis moment in the life of the new park, this is it. But the tempest around the Wilson plan, along with other issues, prompts some second-guessing. A $20 Million Bare-Bones Plan At an estimated $20 million, the bare-bones layout Fehan envisions–a Steve Crawford project with input from Pratt & Miller and Corvette Racing– is still a heavy hit. It's been just fve years since a $10 million expansion almost doubled the size of the museum. The NCM board is being asked, "What's prudent about another major investment so soon?" Time passes. Now it's 2012. Strode is having dinner with some of the museum's major support- ers. Fehan is again in town. He is invited to say a few words. "I guess I was a little passionate," Fehan recalls. "I said, 'Hey, look around. People who went before you put this museum together. This is their legacy. The motorsports park could be yours. When are you going to stop talking about it and do some- thing?' "I asked them how their lives would change if their net worth dropped by $10,000 tomorrow. Short answer: They wouldn't. I think I said some- thing about writing a check right now. Anyway, someone jumped up and did exactly that. Others followed. I was just blown away." One Acre Club Kickstarts Funding It's now 2013. In the wake of Fehan's eloquent outburst, the One Acre Club forms. Entry requires a $15,000 pledge to help acquire the land the NCM has under option. People like board member Henry Younger "buy" several acres. Local Corvette clubs step up. One of them, the Emerald Coast Club of Panama City, Florida, ends up with two acres. Strode is able to announce at the October ground- breaking that all 186 acres are spoken for. Dark-red dirt fies. The NCM wants to make the DRIVERS MEETING Thanks to equal parts luck, foresight and gener , the National Corvette Museum now has its own motorsports complex. The track is located within view of the famed museum. courtesy national corvette museum

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