snake bitten in the Utah desert

Tom Kjos on being snake bitten in the Utah desert � Vanishing Point

Tooele County, Utah, USA

Our first view of Miller Motorsports Park was the dust of loaders, graders, and

trucks working along Utah 112 from Grantsville. On our right was Tooele Army

Depot, home to 2,712,720 pounds of VX Nerve Agent and other similarly

unpleasant stuff. We�d been on the road from Reno most of the day, past

Bonneville Salt Flats, roughly following the Donner-Reed Trail from Donner Pass

six hundred miles west.

Deseret Peak looks down on this high desert valley from eleven thousand feet, a

background this weekend for quiet diesel turbos and the raucous exhaust note of

naturally aspirated V8s. The plumes of ordnance detonations could be seen

southwest of the track. Not on Dugway Proving Ground on the other side of the

Stansbury Mountains, but within the Tooele Depot. Careful, guys. Deseret Peak

Recreation Complex adjoins the track on the southeast. If young soccer players

start dropping over like canaries in a mineshaft, then I suppose it will be time to

leave the area.

We had left Interstate 80 and headed southeast for the last few miles, the

Wasatch National Forest on our right. Thinking of the Eiffel, I murmured, �That�s

where it should be. The track. Up there, beyond that first ridge.� It was just an idle

and impractical thought. I�m really surprised � and appreciative � that anything

like this gets built at all these days. Is there any use for a racetrack in any shape

other than an oval? Had this idea originated to support professional racing it

might have been just that, but an oval is no place for the rest of us to drive our well-

loved cars, is it? I�m thinking that if a love of basketball became the Utah Jazz,

perhaps I shouldn�t be surprised that a love of Cobras became Miller Motorsports

Park.

Alan Wilson�s Project
Barber Motorsports Park, near Birmingham, Alabama, opened in 2003, so I have

to suppose we�re on a track-building binge in North America. That one is about

half the length, but its eighty feet of elevation change dwarfs the zero feet of this

Utah track. If we consider street circuits and to private club tracks, there isn�t so

much of a dearth, and MMP track designer Alan Wilson�s footprints are all over the

map. Wilson, a native of South Africa, started racing while a student at Natal

University in Durban, and straight from there went to work for Ford in 1970

developing that country�s National Formula Ford racing program. Alan�s wife

Desiré is a familiar name in the annals of motor sports; a driver of considerable

talent, she�s the only woman ever to win a Formula One race (a round of the

Aurora AFX British Championship in 1980), had eleven starts in CART, and

competed in IMSA and the World Endurance Championship in such as the

Porsche 935 turbo, Porsche 956, Ferrari 512BB/LM, and March 83G. Meanwhile,

Alan was making his mark in series and track management, including CART

(Chief Steward) SCCA (managing the 1998-1999 USRRC), and Brands Hatch,

(Group Circuit Manager). But it is in track design he has made his reputation,

leaving his stamp on street courses from Columbus to Dallas, Minneapolis and

Denver, followed by permanent facilities including the Fontana Speedway and the

GingerMan, Mid-America, BeaveRun, and Arizona club tracks. The upgrades at

Mont Tremblant are his work, as are now these two most recent professional road

race circuits, Barber in Alabama, and this Utah creation. Both of the latter are FIA

Category 2, tracks, meaning everything can be run there except Formula 1 cars.

The road course at Miller Motorsport Park is 4.5 miles in length on a 511 acre site

and can be divided into two shorter tracks of approximately 2.2 miles each for

simultaneous club events. The front straight is 3500 feet, the longest in North

America, eclipsing Road America�s uphill climb past the pits. The final (slightly)

banked turn and the front straight are fifty feet wide, the remainder of the track is

forty. A �link� � think �the Chute at Infineon for both affect and purpose � can be

used to create a three mile �high speed perimeter course.� Is there a Busch in

this track�s future?

There is �stadium viewing� from six primary spectator zones, or �oasis� areas. If

�oasis� creates an image of such things as green trees, you�re going to be

disappointed. Within those six areas are four aluminum and steel grandstands,

and there we found most of the race day spectators. They might each have been

about one-third full on Saturday. Park on the gravel, walk the asphalt and sit on

the aluminum. That�s the spectator experience for those who do not qualify as a

VIP or a member. Yes, member. This is most definitely a motor sport country

club. Club House memberships, Speed Club memberships, Executive Club

memberships, Kart Club, single, spouse, family � even a �race league.� Certainly

there will be a club champion. Forget NASCAR, this is vanity and corporate

marketing learned from Augusta National and the NBA.

A course is a course of course of course�.
Which brings me to the (multi, as in far side of fifty) million dollar question. For

what, or whom, do you build a race track these days? The principles of oval tracks

are pretty simple, serving drivers who race on ovals and the hundred-thousand or

so fans who will sit in a stadium equally well with few, if any compromises.

Football and monster trucks are pretty much the same thing � and often at the

same venues. But road racing and grandstands have seemed somehow

antithetical � spend some time at the former Sears Point if you don�t believe that.

And now you can spend some time in Utah, too, because Miller Motorsports Park

is, for the fan, the closest thing to Infineon yet.

In many respects this is a street course in the desert. You can see more � with

binoculars � but it comes down to an arrive, sit, leave experience. �No infield

viewing areas are to be developed during initial phase operations, but could be

introduced at a later time,� so says the track�s own overview. There is no on-site

camping and no hope for any. Someone who knows compared the track to

Riverside. I don�t know, I was never there, but the grainy black and white photos

have the same surrealistic feel one gets gazing across these five hundred acres

of sand and tar. Subtract the fancy buildings � most of you won�t have access

anyway � throw in a few hay bales and there you have it.

Part of the answer to �whom� seems to be �drivers.� After some observations that

it might be �busy� with twenty-four � revised by Friday to twenty-three with a bit of

judicious re-numbering and some whimsical naming (Agony and Extacy as

entries and exits of a turn, for instance) � most expressed admiration for the track

as a place to drive cars fast. It was a little more mixed as a place to race, in part it

seems, owing to somewhat limited passing opportunities over those four and a

half miles. After winning the pole for Aston Martin, Tomas Enge said, �I like very

much the track. It is very good for our car.� Obviously. The Corvette guys, we

expect, were somewhat less enthusiastic. Enge added that �...off the (racing) line

is very bad,� reference to the Laguna-like sand and dust, but we concluded from

most that the problem wasn�t nearly as severe as it is at the California track. He

had the same first impression concerns others expressed about twenty-three

nearly featureless turns over four miles plus. �I told my team should have a co-

driver (as in rally) for the first laps, but by five laps, you are learning it.�

Lucas Luhr called it �something incredible, like Shanghai, or Malaysia, a new

track, very wide, very safe.� Bahrain and Dubai were also said by some to be

similar; could it be the desert? Lucas and the Penske team had struggled during

testing here earlier. �After our problems when we tested, we were scared to show

up, but all those problems went away. It (the track) has all the combinations � fast

turns, medium turns, slow turns � so it is very nice. A little bit of Spa, but not so

much up and down. It�s really a unique track, the corners are different than

anywhere.� As for learning the track, Lucas observed that �If you don�t know where

to go, you shouldn�t be here.� At that, Audi pole winner Frank Biela, sitting next to

the Porsche pilot, effected a look of shock, as if to wonder �...should I not be

here?� Frank actually had a minor �off� on his fast lap. Luhr noticed and added,

�Frank�s old. His eyes are going.�

It was Frank�s turn. �It is a big deal, it is very difficult to get used to. I think it

needs a different way of driving. You have to carry so much speed into the turn

here, you really have to be concentrating....perhaps if you�re a youngster, like this

(indicating Luhr)...�

After the race, winner Emaneule Pirro saw designer Alan Wilson in the room. �I

have a question for Alan (turning a press conference on its head is a Pirro

trademark of sorts). This is the grippiest new track...where did you get the tarmac

to do this?� The answer from Alan was straightforward, �We�ve used the same

company for the last three tracks, so I think we�ve got it right.�

So two parts of the puzzle of this high desert edifice are drivers and members,

some of whom are drivers, too, however casual. Unlike those paid to broadcast

across an impressive public address system, drivers weren�t ready to declare

Miller the �best track� or even the �best facility in North America,� and were loath to

make comparisons. �How does this track compare to, say, Road America? Ask

me in twenty years,� was a typical response. Rightfully so, it seems classic status

is hard to come by.

Pasta boy comes home to his roots�
What brings the American Le Mans Series here, then? �Demographics,� says

the man who should know, Ed Triolo, the former Panoz Racing Team manager

who now has to responsibility for such things. �I basically sit in the back room and

crunch numbers,� was Ed�s description of his duties. �We had the Nielsen

organization do a study. The population here isn�t huge, but income is good, and

buying patterns show loyalty to things associated with events like these. We

moved one of those circles (ALMS marketing uses a 250 mile radius circle to

demark the area of exposure of each of their events) into a new area (to here from

Sonoma), and away from an overlap (with Laguna Seca). The circle will likely be a

bit larger here, too. People drive further (than elsewhere) as a matter of course.�

So this fits the American Le Mans Series model then.

The other guys�
On Labor Day weekend, Miller Motorsport Park will host a nine-hour enduro of the

Grand American Road Race Association. They�re here because, well, look first to

drivers and members above. This is certainly a facility designed to serve the

needs of teams and of drivers for whom the experience is a labor of love, and who

call other endeavors their �jobs.� Those are just the participants to which Grand

Am caters. Here is an expansive paddock with full paddock services, a nearby

medical unit, concessions, and toilet facilities, all state-of-the-art. �Grand Prix�

garages, as described by track literature, �Formula One style pit garage

complex...� Whether you make your money doing this or spend it, you�re attracted

to the latest and the best. Such garages, also added last year at Laguna Seca,

and common at Formula One-hosting facilities, remain rare at North American

road race tracks. Miller Motorsports Park � like Barber, for similar reasons �

would attract Grand Am participants. Is that all then? No, there is one other very

important attraction here.

I just adore a penthouse view�
The folks at Grand Am have another interest, inherited from their NASCAR

progenitor � corporate and sponsor facilities. Those are the �fans� most important

to that racing league, and they are certainly well-served here in the Utah desert.

Those Grand Prix garages accommodate rooftop spectator and corporate

hospitality facilities. Again, the track tells its own story best. �Miller Motorsport Park

is unique in providing an exclusive �club� viewing, hospitality, and corporate area,�

trumpets their description. Included are �...viewing terraces...22,000 square foot

clubhouse facility...concourse arena...nearby restricted access parking.�

Everything the CEO needs. Even if the addition of another Nextel road course

event seems remote at best, can that first Busch date be far off?

If you like your races to include a motorhome, campfire, grill, beer, and the

gathering of few special friends, you�re probably not going to think much of Miller

Motorsports Park. If, on the other hand, you are in any other part of this extended

family of motor racing and its fans, your needs are more than just adequately

served by this grand monument to that American icon that seems to have started it

all � the Cobra

Tom Kjos
July 2006