agemomai

good luck, ive been putting half an effort trying to contact these people for a while now and been pretty unsuccessful.

when i was trying to help promote the UsDrift event that was gonna happen there, i eventually found out it got canceled because after we came to test the track, the whole place changed hands and the new owner didnt like the idea or something.. then again, that event fell through for a LOT of reasons, so a while ago i tried to get a hold of them for a floridadrift.com event, but to no avail. im sure they would be cool for just an autox though... i think the word "drift" strikes fear into the hearts of track owners with fragile tarmac..

then again maybe i called the wrong number and sent emails to the wrong address?

4wdFury

holy god that looks fun....:o

Lola56

Loren

I live approx 12 miles from this site.

If you want, I could scout it out, take some photos, and give you my impressions of the site.

A couple of miles from my house is a developement called Silver Spring Shores. I occasionaly test my FF there. It was built in the 60's.

The roads there (SSS) are terrible, poor asphalt and alot of patched pot holes. Also, drainage ditches line the roads. Marion County did not have any minimum standards for building roads by developers at that time. Usually, the roads were built using the cheapest means.

The area near Weirdale is somewhat hilly, so the will probably be no place that would view the entire track. Also, a concern, is blocking off any kind of access to the track layout so no one cold enter the track area.


krekavhts

I have been studying the aerial and the topo maps, side by side.

If you back out 4 steps on both views, I see an over grown area to the east, in the green area (noted as Clear Lake) in the Topo map. Could this be the area built in the 70's? The streets in the circular area are not shown in the Topo map, and the area seems to be newly built.

Let me know is you want me to check the area.

Dave

NitrousAcid069

i would like to know directions on how to get to this place....please please post them!

Loren

Sorry I fell out for a couple days, guys. For some reason, I didn't get a reply notification until this morning?

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Anyway, we still haven't made it out to Lakeland to check the big oval track to see what sort of infield options there might be to make an interesting "road course" out of it.

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Still haven't contacted Ocala GP, I heard that they changed hands, but I think I also heard that it somehow ended up in the control of the same folks who were running it before... or something like that. I haven't even started trying to push buttons on that one yet.

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Someone from the Central Florida Miata Club once told me about the abandoned housing project in the Ocala area. He said they sometimes do unofficial bonzai runs through there.

I like the look of the aerial shot, it certainly has promise. I think someone mentioned it is "free", is that simply because it's there and uncontrolled? Not good enough for a sanctioned event. We have to have permission of the owner to be there. Something tells me that might be hard to get... unless someone in the owning organization is sympathetic to our cause. If anyone has any leads on this, I'd be interested. And, Lola, if you want to check it out and report on the "reality" of the site, that would be great. Things like pavement condition, off-course obstacles like trees, signs, poles, anything else worth noting. Number of access points to outside streets would be good info, too.

I just spent 10 minutes looking over that area. Unbelievable.

Two more questions. The aerial is from 1999, would be good to know how close any residents are to the site NOW. And are there stop signs and stuff in there... would it be considered a "public road" at all, or is this purely private property that happens to have roads on it?

Lola56

Loren

OGP has changed managers. A dolt (liar and cheat) named Wade had been running the place, and he is a real jerk.

Last Feb the builder of the track took over the management of the facility.

For those who want directions, just click on the topo button on the view area. Back out to 32 meters. Alt 27 and 441A is CR 25. The site is east of East Lake Weir, east of US 441, between Ocala and Leesburg.


The Topo mas was created in 1977. This subdivision in the aerial was not listed in the Topo map. That makes me wonder that the area in question is to the east of this aerial.

Dave

Loren

If you've got a phone or email contact, I could use that. Thanks.

If you pop up Lake Weir in MapQuest and scroll a bit to the East (there's a smaller lake just East of Lake Weir, our target is just East of that), you'll find all of those roads, complete with street names. I got a better idea of the area from looking at that.

It appears that this is one of the rear "phases" of a large project. It looks like there is possibly even another section there that the roads were cut but the asphalt never laid. (a little NE of our area, you'll see some interesting "crop circle" looking stuff that's all overgrown)

Lola56

Loren

Here is the website for Ocala Gran Prix

http://www.ocalagranprix.com/

Dave

Loren

Thanks, Dave. I wasn't sure they'd have a website up, or that it would be accurate with all of the management changes I keep hearing about. I'll check it out.

krekavhts

Went to the site today. good luck finding it without GPS. Its damn near impossible to navigate through. You are talking hundreds of acres of roads that go nowhere. I found 1 clearing that looks promising. Most of the site is so over grown that you cannot see safely around corners and there are many trees lining the roads. The section I found, no clue where outside of my GPS bearing, would work well. Big open field with around a 1 mile of roads with enough clearing to see the whole thing. The road is in good condition in that area. No curbs but lots of vegitation. It would take a lot of work for you to run there. I would reccomend to nobody to go out there to run alone. You are in the middle of no where with nothing around and in the event you get lost or worse and there are no real street signs. You have to have a GPS with an up to date road map overlay to venture into this place. Put it to you this way, me and my friend entered the area and drove nearly 4 miles to get to the geocaching point where this clearing is. In that 4 miles of driving through these roads we saw 3 houses. Without the road map gps we would have never gotten out. I can give you directions and a GPS corrdinate to the area of the clearing, but unless there is a group of you going and have GPS don't even try it. Your in the sticks and just watch the movie Deliverance to get an idea of the interesting people you will run across out there.

BTW i took pics of the clearing and will post them once i shrink them down a bit.