Holiday with

RACK driving is one of the world’s great equalisers,” says Maggie Smith, owner of Winvian Farm, a 10-cottage hotel in the posh countryside of Litchfield, Connecticut, in the US.

By most accounts, Winvian Farm is a slow-paced getaway, an oasis for overworked New Yorkers and New Englanders where activities consist of biking around the woodlands, picking herbs from an organic garden and being pampered at the spa.

Now it’s also a place where guests can sign up for full-throttle, 220km/h road-racing lessons at the undulating motorsport track, Lime Rock Park.

“It seemed so obvious,” Smith says of the new, hair-raising excursions her hotel is arranging. “Nobody was doing it.”

Despite the ubiquity of luxury automaker partnerships at highend hotels, where you can be chauffeured to dinner in a Bentley or test-drive a Tesla, few cater to car lovers in meaningful ways.

Now, tracks across the country – including the Indy Speedway, where two hotels belonging to Hilton’s Tapestry Collection are under construction – are pairing up with luxury hotels in new, exciting ways.

“Millennials want something more memorable than a golf course for their corporate outings,” says Sandie Currie, chief operating officer at the Virginia International Raceway, a track whose perimeter is flanked by a handful of twostorey villas. “Driving on a track, that’s the kind of thing they’re looking for.”

This idyllic retreat – less country and more country club – debuted a programme called Women at the Wheel in April, encouraging female guests to get behind the wheel as a means to build confidence and empowerment. “We were trying to think outside the box, and I was amazed at how much mental acuity and stamina the sport of track racing requires,” says Smith, who had seen male hotel guests express interest in visiting the 2.4km Lime Rock Park track-located a half-hour away by car – while their spouses stayed back at the spa.

Those programmes started an official partnership with the race course. In beginner sessions, drivers learn the fundamentals of handling and cornering, test their short sprinting skills on a curvy course, then take timed trials down long straightaways. All this is done with professional coaches over the course of a half-day experienceleaving plenty of time for a calming aromatherapy massage back at the 1 524m2 spa. Packages from R61 000 for two.

Originally, the villas at East Bend were built to accommodate families who came to the 5.26km Virginia International Raceway to watch from their balconies. Now the homes, which have sprawling

Picture: Solis The Overdrive lounge at the Porsche Experience Centre in Atlanta, US, allows guests to watch cars – and airplanes – from a hotel deck.

Picture: Virginia International Raceway Sprawling homes at VIR track at Villas at East Bend in Alton, Virginia.

Picture: Winvian Farm Winvian Farm in Litchfield, Connecticut, also features a suite in a treehouse.