Condominiums at Dominion Raceway

Obviously, we love to test cars, and one of our favorite testing venues is Dominion Raceway in Thornburg, Virginia. So, when we saw garage condos popping up near the track we were intrigued. In fact, it’s part of a nationwide trend that’s quickly becoming a lifestyle choice for car enthusiasts. Our “FYI” reporter Stephanie Hart takes it from here.

STEPHANIE HART: The garage condos are for car fanatics who love to race. This one happens to be one of my favorites. Definitely impressive. And the condos can be used as a place to socialize, a workshop or just a private getaway. And one of the best parts, the Dominion Lux garage condominium is just two minutes from Dominion Raceway by private road.

STEVE BRITT: These are really high-end condominiums. Our collector car market here is high-end and so we finish these for a high-end collector car person, and a lot of them have a finished loft, some of them have showers, some of them are fully built out, some are bought just for storage purposes.

STEPHANIE HART: Will Alexander bought this garage condo recently and was more than happy to show me around. He’s an off-road truck convert who fell in love with road racing and now owns his own business, Contender Motorsports.

WILL ALEXANDER: One of the challenges I had with trying to operate this from home is that at the end of the day I got to try to pack up and tidy this stuff up because that’s also where we have our daily vehicles. So, now I can do more mad science down here in a dedicated space, right. We have great proximity to the track, so I can do some modifications here and then take it out onto the track, and test and tune and really be able to dial things in without having to try to worry about the logistics of transport or worrying about track day fees or any of that sort of thing.

STEPHANIE HART: However, the cost of owning a condo like this one starts at $300,000. It was a dream purchase for Russ Bartlett, who owns this garage condo.

RUSS BARTLETT: It’s a lifesaver because in the winter we put the boat in here, we’ve got a couple of cars in here, we got a little seating area upstairs to just kind of relax, and we got the racetrack right there. So, it’s perfect. It’s a community of like-minded car nuts, so it’s a lot of fun and they kind of get each other.

STEPHANIE HART: Just beyond the car garage condos is the chrome lounge here. I love its style. This is a great place to socialize with other car enthusiasts or even host a meeting. And check this out… this is the Pit Stop, a lift bay where you can make all necessary repairs and maintenance to your car. There’s even a wash bay affectionately named Suds.

STEVE BRITT: Some of these people, the Ferrari owners and stuff, will have a traveling mechanic, and so they can come and service a car here at the garage condo. They also have a wash bay that is heated and cooled.

STEPHANIE HART: Plus, owners have unlimited access to the amenity suite with flat screen TVs, pool, darts, and more.

STEWART BARTLEY: It’s a great group of people over there. We’re building a small community of like-minded car enthusiasts and that’s a lot of fun.

STEPHANIE HART: Which makes track days even more memorable.

JUSTIN GELLERT: Here you can literally drive out of our condo garage area and drive right over to the track. Technically, its private property so you can drive without a muffler if you want to, for example. So, that’s what I love about this property, that it’s close to the 2-mile road course.

WILL ALEXANDER: I could not have ever imagined that I would be part of a community like this. It’s been a lot of fun. A lot of these guys are more experienced motorsports enthusiasts and so it’s been an opportunity to learn a lot from folks who have been doing this a little bit longer. Anytime I’m down here wrenching, folks will be like “hey Will, you need a hand?” So, it’s been great to be part of a group like this.