OneHotLap Track Preview: The Ridge Motorsports Park (UPDATED)

If you live in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) and you like to take your car to the track, life is good these days. As you may recall, we recently reviewed one of the new PNW tracks, Oregon Raceway Park, and it was good.

News came out recently that another brand new track is about to open for business next year and it is generating some serious buzz amongst PNW track junkies. The track is looking like it's going to be phenomenal: 16 corners and some serious elevation changes. Everyone is trying to figure out how and when to get on it.

The new racetrack is called The Ridge Motorsports Park. It is in Shelton, WA which is on the South side of the Olympic Peninsula, a little under 2 hours from Seattle.

The track has been under planning for a couple of years, and construction started this year. After a slow summer, pavement was finally put down in the fall. A few Photos and a couple of videos of how things are coming along have been posted by the track owners these past weeks.

Drooling amongst locals ensued...

The new track seems to have a nice combination of fast sweepers, technical and slower corners, elevation changes, and a long straight. Here is a video of one of the very first cars to get on track after the final layer of pavement was laid down:


I for one cannot wait to drive it. It looks like it's going to be a blast!

12/13/2011 UPDATE
Here is a December 11 (fresh off the oven!) video which gives out a much better idea of the track's elevation changes.



And this is a photo of the front straight taken on the same day from the ridge looking down. It gives a nice perspective of the ridge elevation.