As a teenager, Mark Basso loved everything about his parents’ country club in Elmhurst — except the golf.
He enjoyed the ambience of the club, but he was truly passionate about cars. It was a marriage in the making.
“Cars were always my thing,” said Basso, founder and president of the Autobahn Country Club in Joliet, which he developed in 2005.
Now, at age 2, the club appears poised to grow up through a major expansion.
The founders’ initial investment near Illinois Highway 53 and Laraway Road “has quadrupled in value,” said Basso, one of the partners with Michael Keck, Timothy O’Donnell and Steve Wagner. “Everything’s come up through the roof.”
Since opening, this slice of paradise for motorheads has sold about 345 memberships, each representing a $30,000 one-time fee and $3,000 in annual dues to cover the seven-month racing season, Basso said.
Club members share a 10,000-square-foot paddock clubhouse with renters, but construction of a four-story, $15 million to $20 million Autobahn Speed Pavilion Complex is slated to begin in the fall, with a completion target of early 2009.
It will house a 125,000-square-foot clubhouse with a members-only area containing workout rooms, a swimming pool, restaurant, bar, viewing deck and 40 condominiums, ranging from 535 to 860 square feet. The public portion will include a racing-oriented store, a 9,000-square-foot banquet hall and meeting area, and an interactive car museum.
The museum and car shows will add to the atmosphere while helping keep costs — and dues — down, Basso said. Along those lines, the Autobahn also will rent out about two dozen condos as hotel suites, he said, helping defray their owners’ investments of “$290,000 and up.”
Along with the celebration of speed, the club also preaches safety, and next month is launching a Teen Driving Academy in an effort to reduce crashes and fatalities involving young people. The program teaches advanced defensive driving and crash-avoidance skills, and addresses behaviors and attitudes that increase risks.
Basso said he and his partners are committed to providing teens with a place to learn about driving and “get things out of their system.”
He added that the Autobahn is offering a one-day parking-lot course that uses a “skid car” to teach drivers how to respond to a loss of control. Thanks to big outriggers on the vehicle, “it feels like the car’s slipping out of control,” but there’s no danger to the driver, he said.
“We feel, philosophically, it’s something we should do,” Basso said, adding, “I was the poster child for bad teenage driving.”
Now Basso is surrounded by a feast for car lovers’ senses. On a cool May morning, a charcoal gray Lotus Exige S hisses and crackles down the straight of one track, its engine winding ever higher as it passes the clubhouse.
Seconds later, a baritone V8 snarl heralds the approach of a Corvette C6, followed closely by the hyperactive lug-a-lug-a note of a Subaru WRX STI’s turbocharged flat-four engine.
Cars seen at the track range from relatively inexpensive showroom stock sports cars such as the Mazda RX-8 to the million-dollar Ferrari Enzo Ferrari to full-on racecars, such as the Champ Car Atlantic open-wheeler that clocks nearly 170 m.p.h. down the backstretch as a tractor spreads manure on an adjacent field.
Basso initially tried to develop a site in Sugar Grove, but neighbors concerned about noise stalled the project. It worked out for the best, as the Joliet site is considerably larger. In addition, the surrounding area is zoned for industrial/commercial use, where noise is less of a factor, though the club uses meters to enforce a 105-decibel limit on cars.
“Not too long ago, we made a Maserati owner go to Meineke [muffler shop] to have cherry-bomb mufflers put on,” Basso said. “They were out testing the car, and our track manager went to them and said, ‘Hey, you guys are just too loud.’
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The Autobahn’s focal point is the Grand Prix racetrack, the third-longest course in America. It was devised by Alan Wilson, whose design credits include the 2.5-mile track at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Ala., and the 1.9-mile Gingerman Raceway in South Haven, Mich. Bringing Wilson’s racetrack expertise to the Autobahn is “kind of like having Arnold Palmer design your golf course,” Basso said.
Wilson’s Grand Prix design consists of nine turns on a 1.46-mile northern circuit, and a more challenging 2.1-mile southern circuit. The combined course is a 3.56-mile romp around 320 acres. Wilson also designed the Autobahn’s half-mile, 30-foot-wide Go-Kart track.
Members have sole access to the southern circuit six days a week, and to the combined circuits on weekends. Although the track is not open to the general public, members can invite guests to drive there, and each Monday the Autobahn rents out the entire track. Renters, primarily car clubs and auto manufacturers, can drive the Autobahn’s fleet of BMW 335i twin turbo cars on the north and full circuits.
Twin brothers Eric and Arel Ondoy, 42, of Orland Park joined the club in August 2005. Arel was at the track breaking in the motor on his new Porsche 911 GT3RS.
“We’re lifelong car guys,” Eric said. “We like the camaraderie, being in a safe environment.”
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“Yeah,” said Arel. “It’s nice to be able to race without worrying about … light poles.”
“Or dogs. Or speeding tickets,” Eric said.
Multiple Autobahn members can “play” at the same time by grouping similar vehicles and drivers for “very controlled” high-speed lapping and other activities.
Wilson offset the Grand Prix’s relatively flat terrain by incorporating twists, turns and curves, and working with dips caused by creeks that run through the property.
The resulting configuration requires “a lot of hand-eye coordination. It makes you want to keep coming back until you get it right,” Basso said.
“It will definitely wear you out,” he added, noting drivers can race at well over 100 m.p.h., though it varies based on skill and type of car.
Basso also credits Wilson’s design with reducing the likelihood of out-of-control drivers crashing into walls. The Autobahn requires drivers to undergo training by the track manager, former Indianapolis 500 driver Tom Bagley.
The club serves as a site for vehicle testing, employee training, corporate events and timed races, but not massive spectator events, Basso said. “We’re not looking to be NASCAR. We’d rather have a high-end event with less people.”
To that end, the Autobahn will sell only 3,000 tickets for its Bobby Rahal Historic Races on Aug. 23-26. Rahal, an Indianapolis 500 winner and International Motor Sports Hall of Fame member, belongs to the club.
Away from the track, the Autobahn offers maintenance services to members as well as the opportunity to buy gasoline and oil. Members also are building deluxe garages for their high-performance vehicles around the track.
The “garage mahals,” or “ultimate palaces for your toy,” sit on one-third acre lots. Many feature living areas, such as the garage owned by Larry Ballard.
A comfortable living area faces the track, while the back of the building is a cavernous garage that houses the cars he and his sons own.
“This is the ideal home,” Ballard said. “The garage is bigger than the living area.”
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IN THE WEB EDITION
Take a ride on the Autobahn Grand Prix track in a video at chicagotribune.com/autobahn