Last week I visited Lime Rock Park to check on the upgrades and changes to the track. Perhaps the most interesting change for Muddy Chef participants can be seen on the map below and highlighted in yellow. If you were with us last year, you may remember the hospitality tents were setup on a hillside. That hill is no longer there. The new paddock showers and bathrooms should be fantastic! I’ll post photos shortly.
Checkout the press release from Lime Rock below for more information.
Lime Rock spending millions as it builds a better competitor and sanctioning-body experience
LAKEVILLE, Conn. (April 16) – Lime Rock Park Track President Skip Barber recently committed more than $3 million to a wide variety of projects to significantly rebuild Lime Rock’s infrastructure, with a primary goal of providing vastly improved facilities to specifically benefit competitors and sanctioning bodies.
“We’re changing Lime Rock’s competitor-supporting infrastructure from pre-historic to near state of the art. And it will all be beautiful,” Barber said.
By early summer, the project will result in acres of trackside pavement significantly larger than at any time in Lime Rock’s history. The A- and B-Paddocks will be perfectly smooth asphalt and combined, there are 7 acres of paddock pavement. Both paddocks will also be attractively landscaped.
Not since Lime Rock Park’s race track surface itself was re-built in 2008 has a construction project of this magnitude been greenlighted at the famous 1.5-mile automotive and motorsports venue in Connecticut’s Northwest Corner. Some of these projects will be complete in time for Lime Rock’s season-opener – the Memorial Day Weekend Trans Am Series, and Royals Sunday Car Show, May 22-24 – and the rest in time for the IMSA TUDOR United SportsCar weekend July 24-25.
“In 2008, the track itself had to get done – it was exceedingly bumpy, it needed more guardrail, better run-off areas. Now we’ve addressed the paddocks in a significant, competitor-centric way,” Barber said.
“We’re doing what we need to do – what we want to do – to ensure the track’s professional racing future,” Barber says. “Major sports car races have defined Lime Rock since the day it opened, and I’m making sure that continues well into the future.
“It’s important to note that everything we’re doing, all the changes, all the improvements… all will make Lime Rock more useful, easier to navigate, more sensible – but all with an eye to making Lime Rock even more beautiful than it already is. I have no doubt that, just in the case of our paddocks, Lime Rock’s will be the most useful and attractive in the U.S.”
Of the multitude of Road to 60 projects underway, the highlights are…
A-Paddock
To be completely re-done and much larger, plus: laser-graded-and-paved to eliminate standing water; it will be landscaped; there’ll be defined spectator walkways and cobblestone curbing; and the roadways through the paddock will be much wider. The new A-Paddock is specifically designed to allow two complete race rigs, tractors included, to park in-line – with a walkway in between – from inside Big Bend up to Victory Circle. Additionally, it will provide large and extremely efficient driving exercise and hospitality acreage for automakers as well as other ride-and-drive, press day and driver-training clients.
April 2015: A-Paddock will have an attractive retention pond behind the all-new Big Bend inside guardrail
B-Paddock
To be completely re-done: Paved in its entirety (and also laser-graded to eliminate standing water), there’ll be much more usable space.
Hospitality Acreage
Manufacturers and teams now have choice of three large areas of Lime Rock property dedicated to corporate, race team and VIP hospitality. The popular Outfield hospitality acreage remains essentially the same but the existing hospitality area in the Infield (between the Chalets) has been significantly increased in size and laser-graded. The third is an exciting new hospitality area that overlooks the Righthander and No Name Straight. “The locations of our hospitality facilities will be second to none,” Barber says. Lime Rock also has three chalets, and multiple (and recently refurbished) trackside meeting rooms.
Infield Spectator Hillside
Completely re-done: Close to 100,000 square yards of earth was moved, re-contoured, re-sloped and/or removed to dramatically improve and expand the sightlines as well as make Lime Rock’s famous “picnic-blanket-and-lawn-chair” experience even more enjoyable. Thanks to the re-working of the hill, close to 45 percent of the track can now be seen from this Hillside – with just a turn of the head.
Additionally, the Infield Spectator Hillside has been extended all the way through the inside curve of the Righthander, creating an entirely new and exciting viewing area of No Name Straight and the Uphill. The Hillside reconfiguration has also allowed the spectator fencing to be moved even closer to the circuit in many locations.
A-Paddock Rest Rooms
The Men’s Room will be completely rebuilt – designed by Sam Posey and David Moore – and the Ladies Room totally refreshed.
Handicap Access
It will be improved and/or added throughout much of the facility.
Also: There’ll be a new PA system; expanded and robust wi-fi; improved cellular service; and improvements and expansions to the other spectator areas