OLIVER, B.C. — One hour, 24 minutes.
Not a lap time for the record books, but an auspicious one just the same.
Led by Canadian motorsport legend Jacques Villeneuve, that’s how long it took a group numbering nearly 100 to walk the 4.9-kilometre track layout of Area 27 in the benchlands of the South Interior last Saturday.
Despite a cold north wind, the skies were right out of a South Okanagan Chamber of Commerce brochure, and those in attendance, members and prospective members of the private race track country club on Osoyoos band property, kept warm with visions of piloting their cars up and over what promises to be one of the country’s most challenging, if not most picturesque, circuits.
The group walks the front straightaway section of the Area 27 track.
Handout, Driving
“Everyone was so eager to get going we all just started down the front straightaway to get the blood moving,” said Area 27 president Bill Drossos.
Most in attendance expected the walk would give them some insight into the scale of the project; what they didn’t count on, said Drossos, was getting a crash course in how to drive the yet-to-be-built track.
“As we walked Jacques was explaining to everyone how their car would behave at this point and that point, where you want to place your car here and there,” Drossos related.
It’s not every day you get driving lessons from a Formula One champion, so the group was, according to Drossos, “all ears.”
Front row, left to right: Bill Drossos, Area 27 president; David King, co-founder; Jacques Villeneuve; Clarence Louie, chief of the Osoyoos nation; Linda Larson, MLA for Boundary-Similkameen; and racer Trevor Seibert. The group recently walked the 4.9-kilometre track layout of the Area 27 race track.
Gerry Frechette, Driving
The previous day, Villeneuve, who in addition to lending his racing number to the facility name is also the track designer, Drossos, Osoyoos band Chief Clarence Louie and local race car driver and track builder Trevor Seibert were joined by a survey team and an archeologist to stake out the track.
“We went corner by corner, examining the corner radiuses, the elevations and all the details,” Drossos said, noting that Villeneuve was able to put a “critical eye on all those little details” that make for a great driver’s circuit.
Villeneuve made slight changes to some elevations and corners from his master plan, which up until last Friday was a three-dimensional rendering on a computer.
“You have no real idea on elevation changes and things like how much speed is possible on a given section until you are physically standing there,” Drossos said.
A group shot at the end of the walk.
Gerry Frechette, Driving
If all goes according to plan, which at this point Drossos said is primarily the filing of archeological and legal documents, he said they hope to start moving earth on June 1 with an eye to paving by early fall. If that’s the case, that lap time of 84 minutes will fall early in the spring of 2016.
Actually, it’s already been broken as following Saturday’s walkaround, some members took to their SUVs to drive the roughed out circuit.
“I think the times were in the eight-minute range,” Drossos said with a laugh.
