High-performance automobile enthusiasts, prepare to start your engines. But first you’ll have to loosen your purse strings. A $30 million, 5-mile private racetrack planned for Avondale [Louisiana] promises to help Corvette and Porsche owners get in touch with their inner speed demons. But membership in the country-club style track won’t be cheap. Initiation fees will be $35,000, with annual dues set at $4,000. Scheduled to open next fall, the NOLA Motorsports Park is to be built in three phases on 430 acres south of the TPC Louisiana golf course off U.S. 90. Developer Laney Chouest, a retired doctor from Galliano who now lives in New Orleans, said the track will have several high-end amenities, including a clubhouse and upscale condominiums built over garages dubbed “Garage Mahals.” He said the twisting track will host small races among drivers in car clubs but not large spectator events such as NASCAR races. The first phase calls for a 2-mile winding course with a 4,000-foot straight-away. Plans call for two additional courses that can be joined with the first to form a 5-mile track, which Chouest said would be the longest in the country. Chouest said EMTs will be on site at the Avondale track, which will have no walls to enable motorists who go off course to come to a stop without crashing.(Times-Picayune)(9-7-2009)
