“Track driving is one of the world’s great equalizers,” says Maggie Smith, owner of Winvian Farm, a 10-cottage hotel in the posh countryside of Lichfield, Conn.
By most accounts, Winvian Farm is a slow-paced getaway. It’s an oasis for overworked New Yorkers and New Englanders, where activities typically consist of biking around the woodlands, picking herbs from an organic garden, and getting pampered at the spa.
Now, it’s also a place where guests can sign up for full-throttle, 135-mile-per-hour 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.”
It’s true: Despite the ubiquity of luxury automaker partnerships at high-end hotels—where you can get chauffeured to and from dinner in a Bentley, or test-drive a Tesla—few properties 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 currently under construction—are pairing up with luxury hotels in new and exciting ways. And hotels are eager to court car lovers in more exciting ways.
“Millennials—new young professionals—they want something more memorable than a golf course for their corporate outings,” explains Sandie Currie, chief operating officer at the Virginia International Raceway, a track whose perimeter is flanked by a handful of two-story villas. “Driving on a track, that’s the kind of thing they’re looking for,” she tells Bloomberg.
Whether it’s team bonding or a solo thrill you’re after, these are the places that’ll speak to car nuts and hotel aficionados in equal measure.
Winvian Farm, Lichfield, Conn.
This idyllic retreat—less country and more country club—debuted a program 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,” explains Smith, who had seen male hotel guests express interest in visiting the 1.5-mile Lime Rock Park track—located a half-hour away by car—while their spouses often stayed back at the spa.
Those programs kicked off an official partnership with the race course, which will now host Winvian guests of either gender. On beginner-friendly sessions, budding drivers learn the fundamentals of handling and cornering, test their short sprinting skills on a curvy course, and then take timed trials down long straightaways. All this is done with professional coaches at the track over the course of a half-day experience—leaving plenty of time for a calming aromatherapy massage back at the 5,000-square-foot spa. Packages from $4,400 for two.