As I mentioned last week, I went out to Monticello Motor Club in NY with the SCDA last week. Suffice it to say, this new racetrack is amazing. The track layout was done quite well, and there are a whole slew of different configurations that can be run. We were fortunate to be able to run the full, 4.1 mile, 22 corner course. Now, I wouldn’t consider it a full 22 corners, just because some of them are small and close enough together that they are more like “sections,” but that is true of any course. Bottom line though is that there are a lot of different sections to learn. Perhaps more importantly, there are a ton of compromise corner and sections throughout the course, so you literally need to know what to expect 3 or 4 corners ahead to figure out the best line.

Overall the course is extremely fast on the straights and pretty slow through the corners. I hit 112 mph at the end of the 1 mile straight (personal fastest on a track!) in my Miata, which is a few MPH faster than I hit at the Glen. And I was braking extremely early for the braking zone. This course is pretty hard on brakes overall, as there are so many places where the speed discrepancy between the straights and corners is severe.

I must say that Monticello, at least as it currently exists, is not a particularly safe racetrack. I understand that it was designed with safety in mind, but unless they plan to add lots of runoff everywhere, I will have to disagree. Every major straight had zero paved runoff, and pretty minimal grassy runoff before the wall. The worst by far was the end of the Pit Straight, where you had about 30-40 feet of grass to a row of tires and Armcor walls. And that is a pretty fast downhill straight - I hit over 90 mph by the end. Even many of the slower corners, like the very first left hand corner out of the pits, leaves you very little grass (downhill in this case!) before the tire wall.

The track is complete (I believe) but none of the buildings have been built yet. All that exists is a rather grand tent which currently serves as the clubhouse. So the track doesn’t look quite like it does in the track map online - yet.

Look for some in-car footage and a turn-by-turn coming up.