Select Driving Club Shreds AMP for the Fourth of July

Select Driving Club celebrated America’s 250th birthday by hosting an event at the impressive Atlanta Motorsports Park, marking their first visit to the facility. AMP is a private motorsports park tucked away in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains outside of Dawsonville, Georgia. All of the winding roads leading to and from the track give you a glimpse into what to expect.

The track was designed by F1 architect Hermann Tilke. It’s two miles long and offers up to six different configurations with a total of 98 feet of elevation change. The road course itself has been named as one of the top 10 tracks in North America by Road & Track. The facilities available are nothing short of top notch. Along with the track they also have a driver development center with an “ice” hill, skid pad and 115,000 square feet of open paddock space. Oh yeah, forgot to mention, AMP also has a sick cart track on the property.

AMP has a noise ordinance in place while the track is hot. According to AMP’s website, the limit is 98 db at 50 feet from track edge, inside and outside for cars and motorcycles, 92db for karts. These levels are achievable and very common in Europe. Drift cars aren’t known for being quiet, but the track makes an exception on occasion. From my understanding, the noise restrictions are lifted for the Fourth as everyone is blasting off fireworks to celebrate anyways. Nothing screams freedom more than a Hellcat blown LS powered S13 banging off rev limiter.

Besides all the track-related goodies AMP has, they also have some more country club-like amenities. They have a “Fuel Kitchen" restaurant which is open to the public and features locally-inspired dishes. Also onsite, IV therapy and recovery services are available to members, guests and racers. Think that’s all? Wrong. AMP has trackside condos and villas starting at $650k. These are a nice touch to an already impressive facility. It appears all the condos are sold out but there may be some villas available.

Becoming a member to benefit from all these great features does come at a price. AMP has a few different membership tiers offering up to 153 days of track use. Membership starts out with a one-time, $25,000 initiation fee and monthly dues, and it only goes up from there. With a facility offering as much as AMP does, it's a nice welcome for them to be so inviting to the drift community.

Having thoroughly awed everyone with the facility, the holiday weekend event finally got underway. With it being a single-day event, drivers from all around made the trip to this unique place. There were many new faces as well as some familiar faces from previous SDC events. Drivers showed up and started unloading Friday night, and the driving kicked off Saturday. Compared to Polecat, AMP has more than enough room for unloading. While drivers arrived and found their spot for the weekend, a few Porsches were on track getting everyone hyped up for the next day.

July temperatures in Georgia are as you would expect: blazing hot. Still, everyone was excited to start the day and get driving. During the drivers meeting, SDC stressed to everyone to stay hydrated with it being a scorcher of a day and encouraged anyone that had not driven AMP before to drive a couple laps before letting the freedom ring.

Before the driving got started, us media folk were shuttled out onto track. There were two main areas around the track that we had access to, and the only way to get to these areas was via shuttle. The first spot was near a giant water tower and, even though it was in the middle of the track, the height of the tower did create shade for some relief from the heat. The other spot was on the complete opposite end of the track.

AMP was pretty strict with safety for everyone, and rightfully so. Even if the track went cold, media was not allowed to move about. Once you were on track, you were out there until the shuttle came back or it was the end of a driving session. As fun as it is to be stuck out on a race track, it does have a couple downsides; you miss out on action in the paddock area as well as restrooms.

Spectators, drivers, staff and media had access to the second floor of the paddock building, which provides a great view of the paddock and track. The outside seating area featured a variety of different seating options with some ceiling fans. The viewing area sits overtop of pit lane and butts up to the front straight. Before the trackside villas were built, you had a better view of the first half of the track. Now your viewing is limited to one full turn and straight away, the front straight, and a few small peaks in between the buildings. Once the trackside villas are complete, I would imagine the view from their balconies will be sick.

Like most drifting events on road courses, everyone takes just a little bit to get up to speed. Before long, though, everyone was shredding tires and having a blast. There were a few moments of downtime throughout the day when a driver went off track or blew a tire, but they were able to have plenty of seat time.

After the lunch break and a track reset, mother nature decided to show up. The schedule for the day had a mid afternoon break but the short rain storm with lightning paused any driving until the appropriate time had passed. Once the driving started again, patchy conditions were all over the track. Pro-Spec driver Dustin Miles helped dry the track out by covering the newly constructed trackside villas in a blanket of tire smoke.

These Select Driving Club events offer something they call “Chaos Mode” where drift and grip drivers share the track. Chase McMaster’s beautiful blue S15 and EK Civic were in attendance, and if Chase was drifting the S15, Bryan Leonard was in the Civic following closely. At past events there have only been a few grip drivers. Of these grip drivers, you can guarantee Trip Walker will be on your ass in his K-swapped 86. 

Events like this, along with many others nationwide, unite people and pull the drift community together. For a day or two, it is a small glimpse into what it can look like for people of all backgrounds to come together and function as one. As this year’s 250th birthday passes, I encourage you to reflect on what freedom means to you.

Check out the full event photo gallery here!