JACQUES’ DREAM
South Okanagan track takes shape
On a warm and sunny Saturday in May, a group of like-minded individuals tromped merrily over a former cornfield in the benchland above the small South Okanagan town of Oliver.
It wasn’t a future vineyard, residential community or nature trail they were tasked with envisioning. It was a racetrack. The presence of the country’s most successful open-wheel racer underscored this fact.
Jacques Villeneuve is the designer of the Area 27 circuit, and this was the first opportunity for hundreds of South Okanagan Motorsport Club (SOMC) members and prospective members to see the work done on the 227acre facility.
“I’m amazed. It’s just how I envisioned it so I’m very happy,” Villeneuve said. “You walk a cornfield and you make some drawings, but today it has come to life and represents what I was thinking.
“In fact, it’s even better than I imagined it.”
It was Labour Day weekend in 2013 that SOMC founder Bill Drossos, Villeneuve and Osoyoos Indian Band Chief Clarence Louie stood in the band’s Spirit Ridge Lodge to unveil the grand plan. Skeptics were plentiful, as many Okanagan-based groups have made similar ambitious announcements only to see those dreams go up in exhaust smoke. Some even went so far as to hold groundbreaking ceremonies. But never a wheel turned.
Just two-and-a-half years later, the first layer of gravel is down on the Area 27 layout, the concrete portion of pit lane is poured and some of the walls are going up.
Drossos says the first hot laps are on track for September.
Smaller equipment is moving in to do what construction manager and chief engineer Trevor Siebert refers to as “detail work.”
“We’re probably halfway through the construction work,” said Siebert, himself an accomplished professional race car driver. “When you tour the track now you get a very good impression of what it’s going to look like when it’s down.”
The plan is to return infield areas and surrounding areas back to their natural growth, including sagebrush and possibly corn.
This is the first time Siebert has built a racetrack — he designed one 20 years ago that was never built — and says the biggest challenge he’s faced isn’t in moving earth or grading corners.
“It’s been getting people to believe we’ll actually get this thing built,” he said, adding with a touch of pride, “We’re at the stage now that it speaks for itself.”
For Villeneuve, it’s the realization of a boyhood dream. In his younger years he’d daydream and doodle tracks on pieces of paper.
“I’ve always loved creating things. And now to link that back to what has been my trade and passion, it’s just great. I feel blessed and very lucky.”
Like the best golf course designs, the Area 27 track works with the natural contours of the land, something Canadian motorsport legend and Area 27 driving coach Richard Spenard says cannot be underestimated.
“This is probably going to be one of the most challenging tracks on the continent,” Spenard said. “There’s everything that makes a great track — elevation change, cambered corners, uphill, downhill and it’s fairly fast.
“They just don’t build tracks like this anymore.”