[elegant]

The National Corvette Museum's plan to have a Motorsports Park got a huge approval from the City-County Planning Commission. Thanks to the Bowling Green Daily News, we have learned the conditions of the plan's approval. The Motosports Park will mean much more to the Corvette community than just to visitors to theMuseum and the Motorsports Park itself. For example, the Corvette Race Team, incremental in suggesting and approving the track course layout, will be bringing its C7.R race cars to the track for testing and development on a repetitive basis.

Notice in the above photograph, just across from the interstate, is the Museum itself, with its orange cone "SkyDome" -- inside of which is the infamous sinkhole.

Commission OKs Motorsports Park Plans; Katie Brandenburg

The City-County Planning Commission approved a detailed development plan Thursday for the National Corvette Museum Motorsports Park.

The motorsports park will be built on about 184 acres at Grimes Road and Porter Pike.

The plan comes with six conditions of approval, most of which will have to be fulfilled before a certificate of occupancy can be issued.

Those conditions include constructing a left turning lane from Porter Pike into Grimes Road, re-establishing some portions of a required vegetative buffer along Interstate 65, extending an earthen berm intended to mitigate noise, recording a plat to consolidate the tracts of land within the motorsports park and getting an approved variance for a proposed freestanding sign along I-65.

Proposed parking also needs to be shown with the application for a building permit, according to the conditions.

Wendell Strode, executive director of the museum, asked to eliminate the conditions requiring the vegetative buffer and extension of the berm.

Strode said he never felt like the language in the binding elements required the construction of berms to mitigate noise for nearby properties, only that the park wouldn’t create a substantial increase in noise.

A noise study concluded that the motorsports park wouldn’t create a substantial increase in noise over the noise already created by I-65, he said.

The berm was created because excess soil was available, Strode said. Other aspects of the plan – including a concrete wall and buildings – will also help mitigate noise.

“We feel like we have gone above and beyond,” he said.

Strode also said he doesn’t see the logic of a vegetative buffer to help screen the park from view from I-65.

“We’re certainly hoping that we can move forward without having to have a motorsports park over there that no one can see from I-65,” he said.

The detailed development plan eventually passed with all the conditions in place, but Steve Hunter, executive director of the planning commission, said that amendments might be offered to the existing binding elements at another time.

 

[jsvette]

Thanks for posting. It certainly sounds exciting!

 

[FormulaRedline]

I'm already signed up to be instructing there in October with 10/10ths Motorsports. Not sure if I'll be bringing my usual track car (S2000) or trying out the Arctic White Z51 I should have before then

 

[elegant]

I'm already signed up to be instructing there in October with 10/10ths Motorsports. Not sure if I'll be bringing my usual track car (S2000) or trying out the Arctic White Z51 I should have before then

I am willing your Z-51 arrives long before you go there, so you can bring it back to Bowling Green, running your Corvette where the big dogs (C7.R's) run -- just across the interstate from both the Museum and its BGAP birthplace.

 

[FormulaRedline]

I am at status 3000 or better, so it should be here in plenty of time. But it will be a bit early to be bringing my new shininess to the harsh conditions of the track. Though it would be a crying shame not to run it at what should be one of the first events there. I may just have to protect the front end and go drive it "easy"! At least it's just a track day and not a race day