MongoZ06

I may be transferring to the Dallas/Ft Worth area by the end of the year and was just wondering how many road course tracks are near this area aside from Texas Motor Speedway.

Screamin Z

Eagles Canyon is NW of DFW. Its a very rough track.

The new F-1 Track down by Houston

clubracer6

Yep, that is a very rough track - shame because it could be a cool track, but I certainly will not be going back there ever again. It made Blackhawk Farms circa 1992 look like Monaco...

Screamin Z

When you go off line in the braking zones just to be sure you can stop.. Its time to do something.

SteveC68

South West of DFW is Motorsport Ranch Cresson.

63Corvette

I concur! This is your best choice..........altho I consider TWS in College Station my home track
http://www.motorsportranch.com/

DannyBoyC6

When you guys say rough, what exactly do you mean? The paved surface on the course itself is rough?

I'm doing an HPDE there on the 12th so I'm curious.

Screamin Z

Yes.. as in car bounces all over the place.

kverges

TMS is not really usable for DE IMO. It is DANGEROUS. It is a NASCAR oval with an small kindey-shaped infield portion of less than 1 mile. There are walls to hit. A friend who is a very competent driver, racer and instructor had a vehicle failure in a C5 when just doing a special event. Passenger died and my friend is almost certainly permanently disabled. I race there in a RACE car, but I'll never again drive a street car there.

In North Texas, the 2 options are Eagles Canyon near Decatur and MotorSport Ranch in Cresson. The latter is pretty much the original country club track and is very driver friendly in terms of safety and runoff. After an initial flurry of interest in Eagles Canyon, I think the general consensus is that MotorSport Ranch is the best North Texas option.

A great thing about Texas is that, from DFW, you are within realistic range of Texas World Speedway (perhaps my favorite track in TX), Harris Hill Road, MSR Houston, and Hallett, OK. I also hope the new Austin F1 facility will be open to amateurs at a livable price.

yakisoba

NASA runs Eagles Canyon each fall. It's a fun track characterized by long straights and tight corners. There's quite a bit of elevation change.

MSR Cresson is run as either a long track 3.1 miles or a short track 1.7 miles. The short track is considered one of the more technical tracks in Texas. The long course is kinda weird, but very fun and has decent elevation change.

TMS is rarely run by DE groups. It is mainly a NASCAR track, characterized by high banks and the extremely short infield loop. When I drove it, I was struck by how fun it was, and how deceptively dangerous. It's surrounded by walls, after all. If you mess up, that's where you will end up, and without a cage (or even with one) it would end badly. You can go really fast though.

crease-guard

If you're in the area, drop me a pm and if I can sneak away from work on a members day, I'll take you out there for a couple of sessions. Very fun and technical track. Plus it's really quite safe as there just isn't anything to hit. You have to really screw up in just the right place to hit something.

Jay

MarkDFW

MotorSport Ranch in Cresson, TX is your best bet. Specifically, I would run the 1.7 mile track, and not the 1.3 or 3.1 your first time.

I went to Eagles Canyon Raceway recently and I agree the pavement is a bit rough, but I thought the track was a lot of fun and I liked the fact there were a lot more passing areas than MotorSport Ranch. My biggest complaint of the 1.7 mile at MSR is you may have to wait a while when stuck behind slower traffic.

I bought 2 seat licenses to the new Circuit of the Americas track in Austin and I'm dying for them to open it up next year for HPDE. Unfortunately, I'm sure they will charge an arm and a leg to drive on that track, but I'll probably pay for it anyway.

WBHighwind

One last track that I know of that hasnt been mentioned yet is Grand Sport Speedway SE of Houston near the coast in Hitchcock. Dont know of anybody thats run it, but NASA does TT/HPDE there.

Seems like now that some are getting involved in a once a year trip over to the new track in New Orleans. Its apparently an amazing facility not yet totally complete, but the track is open and is a blast to drive.

SteveC68

Grandsport doesn't get a lot of love (I drive by the track everyday on the way to work). I was looking at some website the other day that had the map locations of all HPDE tracks in the US and noticed that Grandsport wasn't listed. It is a pretty good drive from Dallas though probably 5 hours. If you are willing to drive that far then you might as well consider Motorsport Ranch Houston (which is in Angleton).