Summit Point Motorsports Park

Summit Point Motorsports Park at a glance

Location

Summit Point, West Virginia

Type

road course

Length

2 mi (3.219 km)

Turns

10

Direction

clockwise

Surface

asphalt

Opened

1969

Owner

Bill Scott Racing, Inc.

Address

201 Motorsports Park Circle

Phone

+1 304-728-5206

Website

summitpointmp.com

Track map and layout

Summit Point's original Main Circuit is a fast, flowing 10-turn, 2.0-mile road course built on natural terrain in the West Virginia countryside, with a 2,900-foot main straight leading into a tight first turn. Its signature feature is the Carousel, a linked pair of corners (Turns 6-7) added about a year after the track opened to slow a layout organizers found too easy. The same 300-plus-acre property also holds two more circuits built specifically for club racing and instruction: the shorter, technical Jefferson Circuit, and the Shenandoah Circuit, whose full 22-turn configuration includes a banked corner modeled on the Nürburgring's Karussell. Together the three tracks let organizers run cars and motorcycles simultaneously across the property on busy weekends. The Main Circuit remains the facility's flagship layout and the one most associated with its 1970s and 1980s professional racing history.

Named corners and sections

• The Carousel. A linked Turn 6-7 complex added to the Main Circuit in the early 1970s, roughly a year after opening, to add a technical mid-lap section to what was originally a simpler layout.
• The Karussell (Shenandoah). A banked corner on the full Shenandoah Circuit configuration modeled after the Nürburgring's Karussell.

Configurations

Events and race weekends

Summit Point does not run a single marquee professional weekend the way some circuits do; instead it operates as a year-round, multi-track club-racing and instruction hub, with the site describing over 40 organizations holding events there annually. In the track's earlier decades the Main Circuit hosted professional IMSA GT, Can-Am and Trans-Am rounds, and it was the site of some of the SCCA Washington DC Region's earliest driver's schools starting in 1969. Today the calendar is dominated by SCCA regional racing and driver's schools, NASA regional weekends, car-control clinics, and motorcycle track days run by outside promoters across the three circuits.

Getting there and parking

Summit Point sits in West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle, roughly two hours west of Washington, D.C., making it a regular weekend destination for the DC/Northern Virginia track-day community. The nearest sizable regional airport is Washington Dulles International, with Ronald Reagan Washington National further east; the closest general-aviation field is Eastern WV Regional Airport/Shepherd Field near Martinsburg.

• Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) · about 75 min drive
• Eastern WV Regional Airport (Shepherd Field) (MRB) · about 25 min drive

Parking

Standard spectator parking is included with event admission; premium trackside reserve parking that accommodates RVs can be pre-booked for select events.

Hotels and camping near Summit Point Motorsports Park

The facility allows spectator camping on-site and offers trackside reserve parking spots suited to RVs for select events, which many participants use in preference to driving in each day from the DC/Northern Virginia area or nearby towns.

Where to look

Martinsburg and Charles Town, West Virginia are the nearest towns with hotel options; some visitors base further out in the Northern Virginia/DC suburbs given the roughly two-hour drive.

Track days, driving experiences and lap records

Summit Point is one of the busiest club-racing and driver-training venues on the East Coast, with its three permanent circuits letting multiple organizations run concurrently. SCCA's Washington DC Region and NASA's Mid-Atlantic region both hold regular race weekends and HPDE days, Chin Track Days runs open-passing HPDE programs on the Main and Jefferson circuits, and N2 Track Days brings sportbike track days to the property. The facility also hosts law-enforcement and government driver-training programs, autocross, and drift events on the Washington Circuit skid pad.

Who runs days here

• SCCA Washington DC Regioncar
• NASA Mid-Atlanticcar
• Chin Track Dayscar
• N2 Track Daysmotorcycle

Lap records

Spectator guide

Summit Point is primarily a working club-racing and driver-training facility rather than a spectator-stadium venue, so the biggest crowds show up for SCCA and NASA regional race weekends rather than a single headline professional event. General admission and trackside parking are available at most spectator events, and the facility's own materials do not describe fixed grandstand seating.

Best places to watch

Vantage points around the Main Circuit's Carousel (Turns 6-7) give a view of cars working through the track's signature technical section.

Weather

• Jul: warm and humid, highs typically in the mid-to-upper 80s°F
• Oct: cool, crisp fall weather, popular for club-racing weekends

History of Summit Point Motorsports Park

Origins

Summit Point Raceway opened in October 1969 in West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle, designed and built by local auto-racing businessman Pat Goodman on natural rolling terrain roughly two hours west of Washington, D.C. The first competitors on the property were SCCA regional racers that same fall, followed shortly by an IMSA International Sedans professional round, and the SCCA Washington DC Region's driver's schools became a fixture there almost immediately. The original layout ran about 1.85 miles over eight turns, but organizers judged it too simple within about a year and added a linked corner complex, nicknamed the Carousel, that brought the track to its current 10-turn, 2.0-mile configuration.

Professional era and expansion

Through the 1970s and 1980s the Main Circuit built a reputation on the East Coast professional scene, hosting IMSA GT Championship, Can-Am and Trans-Am Series rounds, and it drew celebrity entrants including actor Paul Newman, who raced a Bob Sharp-prepared Datsun 510 there. Ownership passed to Bill Scott, the 1970 Formula Vee World Champion, and Tom Milner in the early 1980s; Bill Scott Racing has operated the facility since. As professional series gravitated toward larger, more heavily sponsored circuits in the 1990s and 2000s, Summit Point leaned into its strength as a club-racing and driver-training hub, adding the Jefferson Circuit in 1996 and the Shenandoah Circuit, with its Nurburgring-inspired banked Karussell corner, in the mid-2000s, followed by the Washington Circuit skid pad in 2009.

Present day

Today Summit Point operates as a multi-track complex hosting more than 40 organizations a year, from SCCA and NASA regional racing and driver's schools to Chin Track Days HPDE, N2 motorcycle track days, and government and law-enforcement driver training. Its three road circuits and skid pad let several disciplines run simultaneously on a single weekend, and its proximity to the DC/Northern Virginia metro area has made it one of the most consistently used amateur road-racing facilities on the East Coast.

Frequently asked questions

Other tracks nearby

• Richmond Raceway · 117 mi · oval
• Dover Motor Speedway · 131 mi · oval
• New Jersey Motorsports Park · 156 mi · road course
• Pittsburgh International Race Complex · 168 mi · road course
• Pocono Raceway · 181 mi · oval
• Virginia International Raceway (VIR) · 196 mi · road course