The Monticello Motor Club’s debut

A country club driving resort for the high-end motoring enthusiast. That’s the concept behind the Monticello Motor Club’s 4.1-mile road circuit located in upstate New York about an hour and half drive from mid-town Manhattan. The grand opening of the Monticello Motor Club’s brand new track took place last Sunday with Mario Andretti and Brian Redman on hand to respectively demonstrate a JPS Lotus 79 and Gulf Porsche 908/3 before the track’s founding members took their first laps aboard their personal road cars.

Andretti and Redman have consulted with the Monticello Motor Club’s founders on the design of the circuit and its facilities. Over the past year Redman has worked with track architect Bruce Hawkins to refine the layout which is not intended as a race track but purely as a private circuit for a maximum of 500 members to exercise their high-performance road cars.

Membership in the Monticello Motor Club costs US$125,000 with annual dues of US$7,500. This buys you as many as 200 track days each year. Garages and condominiums are under construction so that cars can be stored and maintained at the track and selected owners and their families will be able to stay on the grounds in their own ‘autominiums’. Also under construction is a 20,000 square foot Members Pavilion which will include locker rooms, a full-service kitchen and conference rooms. A full slate of professional driving instructors are also available to help improve the technique and driving skills of club members.

An onsite helipad allows members to helicopter directly into the track from New York City in less than half an hour. Private jets can also fly into the Sullivan County Airport in Newburgh about twenty minutes from the new facility.

The Monticello Motor Club was founded by a group of entrepreneurs and motoring enthusiasts led by William McMichael and Ari Straus. McMichael and Straus are the club’s CEO and COO. “The goal of the Monticello Motor Club us to provide a completely new way for enthusiasts to conveniently experience the very best in automotive luxury and performance driving,” McMichael said.

I was able to do a few laps of the new track as Brian Redman’s passenger last Sunday morning. “They’ve done a fantastic job,” Redman commented as we whizzed around the circuit. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it anywhere in the world and when all the facilities are complete it will be nothing less than superb. And the track is very challenging and very quick. It’s a real drivers’ circuit.”

Good luck to the Monticello Motor Club on its intriguing new venture.