FAQ
- Who is the target market for the resort and non-motorsport facilities?
- Who is the target market for the road course facility?
- How can it be affordable if you are offering so many services? Won't this add to the cost for the users?
- Will this project require any Government funding or subsides?
- How will it be successful?
- Can Southern Alberta support a venue like this?
- Does the climate in Alberta limit the viability?
- Would a new facility like this be possible within or adjacent to a large urban area?
- What principles were important to the design of the courses?
- How will the courses be safe?
- What are the courses like and will they be exciting?
- Will there be a facility available for low-speed driver training and autocross events?
- Why residential condos?
- When is the projected opening date?
- When will you start accepting deposits for memberships, garages, and residential condos?
- Who is the target market for the resort and non-motorsport facilities?
The target market is very broad. The services are not just intended for the users of the road course facility, but also for their entire family who may be interested in other activities. By ensuring there are activities for the whole family, it will allow users of the road course to spend more time with their family in addition to enabling them more time to participate in their sport of choice.
However, the resort centre is NOT just intended for the families of the road course users. It is intended to be a site where the local community can use and benefit from the facilities. In addition, it is intended to attract tourists to the region who may not be interested in participating in motorsports. It is similar to a resort that is associated with a golf course or ski hill. Many people are attracted to those resorts merely for the scenic beauty, and BMR is the same. The natural topography of the site including the river valley and views of the Canadian Badlands will attract visitors on its own.
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- Who is the target market for the road course facility?
Currently in Southern Alberta there is an enormous demand for the use of an automotive road course. Many groups, clubs, individuals, and organizations use the current road course in Calgary, Race City Motorsports Park, which is currently scheduled to close after the 2010 season. It is used for driver education, performance driving recreation, and competitive events. Our goal is to not only accommodate all of the current users, but to introduce a whole new demographic who have never used a road course before. There is a large proportion of the population who would like to use this type of facility if they had better and easier access to it, and many potential users that previously have not been marketed towards.
Because this will possibly be the only facility of its kind within Western Canada, it is essential that we are able to support all users and groups that currently use this type of facility.
In addition, our mandate and founding principle has been to make the facilities available and affordable to all income demographics. This can be achieved by multiple programs that tailor the services to each individual’s affordability. And by making it affordable to younger individuals and families, it ensures continuous growth of the sport.
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- How can it be affordable if you are offering so many services? Won't this add to the cost for the users?
No, actually it is completely the opposite. For many years, road course facilities relied solely on rental revenue and event admission revenue. This is very limited, and the cost of renting these facilities has become extremely expensive in many areas across the continent. By adding services such as gas sales, parts sales, auto service, food services, child care, equipment storage, vehicle storage, individual garage sales, on-site accommodation, and multiple non-motorsports recreational facilities, it allows the venue to be not solely reliable on two limited revenue streams. And the revenue generated by services that would otherwise go to off-site and unrelated businesses has the benefit of making the venue viable and affordable to the users.
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- Will this project require any Government funding or subsides?
No, the resort will be completely privately funded. There will be absolutely no tax burden to the Counties or Province, and there will be a large net tax gain based on the operations and markedly increased property tax revenues due to the significantly increased value of the site upon full build out.
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- How will it be successful?
Any developer who will be building a new facility in the region will have to adhere to a business model that has shown to be successful in other regions with similar demographics and climate. The facility would also have to be of extremely high quality, ran with excellent management, meet the needs of its target demographics, be affordable to enthusiasts over wide scale of income brackets, and, most importantly, create and market an exciting environment that attracts not only the existing local motorsports, but broadens its target to expose more individuals who have never considered the sport and attract visitors from outside the province and country.
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- Can Southern Alberta support a venue like this?
Current demand for road course usage at Race City Motorsports Park is extremely high. Alberta has a high standard of living, thriving economy, young population, and high disposable income levels.
In 2003, TD Economics released a report which showed the standard of living in the Calgary-Edmonton Corridor surpassed any other area in North America. Compared to countries, the only place in the World with an average standard of living per capita greater than the Calgary-Edmonton corridor was Luxembourg which is a tiny landlocked Country between Belgium, Germany, and France.
+ http://www.td.com/economics/special/alta03.pdf
In Canada, there really are two new world-class road courses in operation: Calabogie Motorsports Park and Mont Tremblant. Both were designed by Alan Wilson and have been very successful. Both of those venues are farther away from a major centre (Ottawa and Montreal, respectively) than our proposed development.
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- Does the climate in Alberta limit the viability?
The weather in Calgary does not impose as big as obstacle as one might think.
There are many very successful Road Courses in the US which are not in southern or coastal locations and have a season that is similar in length to ours.
Miller Motorsports Park in Salt Lake City, Autobahn Country Club in Chicago, Gingerman and Gratton Raceway in Michigan, Mid Ohio Sports Car Course, BeaverRun in eastern Pennsylvania, and Road America in Wisconsin are all examples in addition to the Canadian venues such as Calabogie Motorsports Park near Ottawa, Mont Tremblant in Quebec, Mosport and Shannonville in Ontario.
All of these road courses have essentially the same length of season as Southern Alberta and have proven to be very viable. So viable, in fact, that there are over 10 new road courses in development in the Northern half of the US that have similar climate limitations.
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- Would a new facility like this be possible within or adjacent to a large urban area?
Land costs in any urban centre in North America have made the possibility of a racing venue in city limits a thing of the past. There are over 60 large scale road course facilities in North America, of which there are only 5 within the city limits of a large urban centre. None of which were constructed in the past 25 years.
Almost every new Road course constructed in North America in the last 3 decades is between a 30 to 180 minute drive from the centre of a large metropolitan area. This is the current reality and future of motorsports developments.
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- What principles were important to the design of the courses?
When designing this project there were 2 key concepts:
- Creating a safe environment where individuals of all skill levels could learn the limits of their vehicle without the fear of damage or injury;
- Creating a challenging and exciting course design.
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- How will the courses be safe?
The courses are being designed by Alan Wilson of Wilson Motorsport. Alan Wilson is an internationally recognized road course and kart track facility designer. He has designed and built 19 road courses and consulted or designed several others that are still in various stages of development.
He offers award-winning, industry recognized expertise in the important and complex world of motor racing safety, a crucial element of the motor sports environment that encompasses spectators, officials and competitors alike.
Wilson Motorsport is experienced in all forms of facility safety and provides creative and cost-effective solutions to a wide variety of challenges. Safety is a very big concern to Wilson. He specifies runoff areas and gravel traps instead of barriers everywhere possible, and insists every runoff be as smooth as a golf course fairway to reduce the chance of rollover.
Alan has been a track safety consultant to the SCCA (Sports Car Club of America), acting as a track inspector and was presented with the club’s George G. Snively MD Award for his contributions to track safety.
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- What are the courses like and will they be exciting?
A brief synopsis of our plan is that includes 3 interconnected road courses (which can be run independently or connected into longer courses) with over 6km (4.4 miles) in total length. The venue would be it would be one of the largest in North America. The facility also would have more elevation changes than any current road course in North America. Many enthusiasts agree that elevation changes are the most exciting aspect of any road course.
One road course is designed as a higher speed course yet has many potential passing areas and very safe run off zones that would be conducive to aggressive manoeuvres. On the mountain course, there is over 175 feet of elevation change, which is more than any course in North America. The maximum downhill grade would be up to 3.5 degrees and the uphill grade would be up to 6.0 degrees. The valley course goes around a large 100 foot hill in the middle, so every corner is blind.
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- Will there be a facility available for low-speed driver training and autocross events?
Yes, the paddock is being designed as a flexible space so that each day there would be some paddock space available for introductory driver education and autocross events. The available space would depend on how much parking is required to accommodate the road course users.
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- Why residential condos?
Many may think it's unusual to sell residential condos near a road course. However, motorsports is similar to other sports like golf or skiing, where enthusiasts have a desire to live and stay where they do their hobby. The concept of incorporating condos within road course developments started in 2005, and now 4 other facilities in North America are building them and they are selling very well.
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- When is the projected opening date?
We are currently going through the process of having our Area Structure Plan for the development being instituted into a new Land Use Bylaw as a Direct Control District for the development site. It is difficult to accurately predict when this will be completed and accepted. However, potentially the project could be operational for the 2011 season.
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- When will you start accepting deposits for memberships, garages, and residential condos?
We will not be accepting any deposits until we have all of the necessary approvals in place to ensure that the project can be completed. At that time, we will institute a widespread and high impact marketing campaign.
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