Lime Rock Park: The Legacy Road Course in New England

Tradition. Beauty. Speed.

These are three commonly used words to describe Lime Rock Park, the beautiful 350 acres in northwest Connecticut made up of camping grounds, beautiful sights, and a 1.5-mile road course, the shortest on the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship schedule.

“Sports car racing is deep in the DNA in the history of Lime Rock Park,” said Lime Rock Park General Manager Steven Sewell. “We definitely draw from a broader regional area for (the WeatherTech Championship) and we bring people here who wouldn’t otherwise experience Lime Rock Park. They become loyal fans and then they come back.”

Nicknamed the Road Racing Center of the East, the property is so striking that, earlier this month, it was named as the view to see in all of Connecticut on USA Today’s “Road Trip USA - 50 States, 50 Views” list.

Sewell continued, “We want it to be a fan-friendly, a family-friendly environment and a place that people can spend a nice afternoon in the hills of northwest Connecticut and take in a great motorsports race like what the WeatherTech Championship brings to Lime Rock Park.”

HISTORY

Two years after opening its gates in 1957, Lime Rock hosted a famous Formula Libre race, won by midget racer and Indianapolis 500 winner Rodger Ward against some of the world’s fastest cars and most talented drivers. In stunning fashion, the race would go down in history as a contest in which the amateurs boldly proved themselves against the professionals.

Track owner and motorsports training legend Skip Barber took over the reins in 1984, only a few years after IMSA first visited the track with the GTU series and later the GTO series. The SCCA was another frequent Lime Rock visitor with the Can-Am and Trans-Am racing series.

Lime Rock prides itself on being one of the few tracks that has remained nearly untouched since its construction decades ago. The only track alteration was made in 2008 when the surface was completely repaved, but Barber and other Lime Rock executives made it a point to keep the features that make it such a technically challenging track, despite its deceivingly simple layout.

“Skip really wanted to maintain the true nature of Lime Rock Park,” Sewell said. “So when we repaved the track, we were very careful to maintain the original course configuration and start the upgrades from the inside out, so to speak.”

Inside out is right.

With its 60th anniversary approaching in 2017, Lime Rock also will see the end of another major renovation project: The Road to 60. This infrastructure project has focused on updating nearly every aspect of the park, now that the track surface has been updated. The project includes 10 acres of newly paved paddocks, additional Wi-Fi access points for greater coverage, and retention ponds that greatly reduce the possibility of temporary flooding, among many other updates to landscaping and spectator areas.

Sewell explained, “We’re using the 60th year as the focal point to really draw the attention to what we are and to celebrate what we’ve accomplished in the first 60 years, and make it a place that everyone wants to come for another 60 years.”

DRIVER PERSPECTIVE

Andy Lally, Northport, New York native and winner in GT Daytona at Lime Rock in 2016: “Lime Rock is a special place to me because after Bridgehampton (Race Circuit) closed, it was the closest race track to where I lived, just an hour and 45 minutes away. It’s where I took my Skip Barber school, so my very first on-track experience was actually at Lime Rock Park in 1993. It’ll be cool to go back there this year driving the No. 93, especially after the success that I had there last year. I’ve had a lot of fun, memorable wins there in GRAND-AM, ALMS and now the WeatherTech Championship. It’s a cool place for me; a lot of my family and friends come up there.”

TRACK PERSPECTIVE

• A long, wide, flat sweeper that marks the start of a new lap. It tends to be a bit deceptive for new drivers, seeming to offer plenty of room for multiple lanes but in reality remaining a one-line corner.
• Settling in to watch the race from Lime Rock’s Spectator Hill offers an excellent view of the entire first complex of corners before the cars disappear out of sight heading up No Name Straight.
• One of the most important turns on the circuit, the Downhill wraps up each lap and offers great reward to those who get it right. An excellent exit from Downhill will provide optimum speed down the backstretch and allow for ample passing opportunities braking into Big Bend.