Lapping the Ascari Race Resort: classic MOTOR

Imagine, for a moment, a race track situated on a Spanish hillside, with only olive trees for company. Imagine that the track is 5.4km long and that it’s composed of 26 corners.

This feature was originally published in MOTOR’s May 2007 issue

Imagine too, that membership of this secret circuit is limited to just 500 people and that each member is entitled to more than a hundred track days each year. Now imagine that for one day only, you’ve managed to gatecrash the party.

The track is the Ascari Race Resort and it is an adolescent wet dream. Laid out before me are a handful of Ferraris – a 360, a couple of F430 Spyders and a 612 Scaglietti – a RUF-fettled Porsche and a purple Lamborghini Diablo that’s been tuned to deliver more that 450kW. These are the toys of the people who’ve paid 125,000 Euros ($211,000) to become a member of the world’s most exclusive motorsport club.

The resort is the brainchild of Klaas Zwart, a Dutch billionaire turned car collector and supercar builder, who spends his leisure time racing old Ferrari F1 cars. Bored of hiring other people’s circuits, Zwart decided he needed his own private playground. He searched for two years until he flew his helicopter over an old sheep farm near the Spanish town of Ronda, which he bought. Two-and-a-half years (and almost $70 million) later, the Dutchman fulfilled his dream.

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“After it was finished, Klaas realised that it was much too good just to keep for himself,” says member and sometime CEO, Geoffrey Finlay. “He decided to open it up to 500 members from across the world.” The membership book includes ex-F1 racers Martin Brundle and Christian Danner, musician and car fanatic Jay Kay and Hollywood action man Dolph Lundgren. Wealth is an obvious prerequisite of membership, but decent personal skills are also a must – there’s an informal vetting procedure.

The facilities are absurdly luxurious. In place of the usual mix of rusting doors, shabby concrete and the stale stench of urine (ever been to Le Mans?) are architecturally designed garages with painted floors and electric doors. Ascari has even built an underground car park capable of accommodating 400 cars. It’s probably the world’s most valuable multi-storey.

The pits house Ascari’s own collection, which can be hired on a lap-by-lap basis. I’m tossed the keys to a track-prepared BMW 3-series Compact and told to go play.

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It would have been a tragedy if, having invested so much in the facilities, Zwaat had built a Mickey Mouse circuit. He hasn’t. Instead of paying an architect a squillion dollars to produce a tedious, identikit track, he scribbled some corners on the back of an envelope and set to work.

The net result is a 5.425km track that uses the natural contours of the land to fine effect. If this were a golf course, you’d call it a links. There’s a challenging mix of slow- and high-speed twists that require both patience and sensible racing lines. Switch off your brain and you’ll end up in an immaculately manicured gravel trap.

The circuit’s signature corners are replicas. A banked turn mimics the Karoussel at the Nurburgring Nordschleife, while a downhill left-right-left replicates the Laguna Seca corkscrew. The latter is a hoot. In the BeeEm, you brake late, grab second and turn left without letting the car run too far wide.

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A quick burst of power down the hill is followed by a tight-right that leads to the start-finish straight. There are few obvious overtaking opportunities but that doesn’t matter too much – despite the resort’s name, it doesn’t have a licence for racing and any jousting is strictly informal.

Having proved that I’m not a total muppet, I’m invited to shoehorn my 185cm frame into the Formula Ascari. This is based on an old Reynard F3000 chassis, which is clearly built for the world’s smallest man. We’re forced to rip out the seats and bolt me to the bulkhead, mere millimetres from the 202kW, 3.0-litre V6.

With 324kW per tonne, a sequential gearshift and monstrous grip from the vast slick tyres, this car isn’t short of performance. The Ascari mechanics reckon it’s 23 seconds faster than a Porsche Carrera GT around this circuit – and I believe them. The formula car has a savagery that no supercar will ever match, even if it does give me cramp and a sore arse.

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The circuit collection also includes a Radical, but the prize possessions are a pair of Benetton F1 cars that once belonged to Gerhard Berger and Jean Alesi. Now fitted with 559kW, 4.0-litre Judd V10s coupled to manual gearboxes, they were campaigned by Zwart in the EuroBoss Championship for ex-Grand Prix cars. I eye them enviously, but I’m not allowed to touch.

Not surprisingly, the Resort is precious about who gets to play with the ultimate big boys toys. Aspirants must attend specials ‘F1 Days’, which offer training followed by a handful of laps.

The whole set-up is hugely indulgent, but there’s little of the forced machismo or the go-faster egotists associated with most conventional track days. The atmosphere is chilled, laid back. I’m told that this is a busy day, but there are just 12 members in attendance.

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On the pitwall, I snatch a word with Geoff Harding, a British ex-pat who runs a supercar club in Spain. “Nobody has ever been here and not said ‘wow’,” he says. Harding reckons that the Resort’s strength lies in the purity and simplicity of the concept. “He [Klaas Zwart] did it because he wanted to do it.”

When the action’s over, I’m taken on a tour of the rest of the facility. The ‘Race’ element is just about complete but the ‘Resort’ is just taking shape. A traditional Andalusian Cortijo – think fancy cottage with a pool – will have been joined by a hotel by the end of 2008. It will be to a six-star standard with just 32 individual suites available at a cool $3400 a night.

The hotel’s piece de resistance will be a swimming pool with its own microclimate – guests will enjoy hot air on cool days and cold air on hot days.

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More entertainment is planned. There’s already an off-road track populated by hilarious bike-engined buggies and before long there’ll be a golf driving range and clay pigeon shooting. What there won’t be, though, are neighbours. The Spanish ministry of defence own the adjacent land. “There are lots of landmines and now and again you hear the thud of a sheep being blown up,” says Finlay.

As the members clamber back into their exotica and return to their no doubt palatial villas, it’s impossible not to feel a gutful of envy. At first glance, the $211,000 joining and $8500 annual maintenance fees look extraordinarily expensive, but membership is for 30 years.

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Total up the cost of a hundred track days a year for three decades and it starts to look like decent value. You’ll never be faced with a queue and instead of the usual trackside offal burger, you’ll be fed the finest cuisine.

The Ascari Race Resort could never be described as anything other than a huge indulgence. It is a fantasy island for motorsport enthusiasts with both the time and the money to explore their passion. It’s utterly bizarre, but utterly compelling. The world of the gentleman racer has never seemed so appealing.

Ascari KZ1 - 387kW novelty for the wealthy

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Missing from the Race Resort was Ascari’s own supercar, the KZ1. Costing the not inconsiderable sum of £235,000 ($584,000), it’s built at the Ascari HQ in Banbury, England. Each car takes four people up to 16 weeks to assemble and on our last visit we were handed the keys to chassis number one.

The KZ1 employs a carbon-fibre monocoque chassis and body panels, built by the race car specialists, Lola. It weighs just 1330kg and is smaller than a Porsche 911. In the real world, that’s a key advantage.

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The engine is a 5.0-litre V8, sourced from the 294kW BMW E39 M5 and then tuned to deliver 387kW. The Cima six-speed manual gearbox is the same as that used in the Pagani Zonda. It has a manly, mechanical feel, although it’s irritable when cold.

Helped by the lowly mass and the traction afforded by its mid-engined configuration, the KZ1 will hit 100km/h from rest in 3.7sec and, says Ascari, top 322km/h. At high revs (above 5000rpm) the KZ1’s thrust starts to take on an otherworldly quality. This is a genuine supercar and the engine’s bark is much angrier than the BMW norm. It’s not as cultured as a Ferrari V12, but at least it has presence.

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The KZ1 employs a classic set-up of unequal length wishbones and an anti-roll bar at the front and double unequal length wishbones, with an anti-roll bar, at the rear. The set-up was tuned by Lotus’s Gavin Kershaw and he’s done a fine job.

The Ascari is beautifully damped, comprising surprising comfort with a high degree of agility. The grip is prodigious and the only key concern is an ABS system that intervenes much too readily. For a car built in such tiny numbers – production will cease when the 50th car has been produced – the Ascari feels extremely well sorted.

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Ascari would like us to describe the KZ1 as a GT car. The interior is an opulent mix of leather and aluminium and all the switchgear is bespoke. It’s well finished but, like the exterior, it lacks a sense of occasion. The driving position is also disappointingly flawed. A straight-armed, bent-legged posture is not ideal when there’s 387kW on offer.

The KZ1 lacks the depth of quality or the sheer desirability of Ferrari’s 599, but in many ways the comparison is fatuous. Ascari’s customers will most likely already own a Ferrari, a helicopter and maybe a jet. For them, the KZ1’s novelty and exclusivity will be the primary draw.

Some will also be looking to add the new Ascari A10 to their stable. This is a road-going version of the Ascari racer that competes in European GT Championships, and it’s the car for those who find the KZ1 too soft-core. The A10’s V8 has been tuned to 447kW and Ascari is predicting a 354km/h top speed. Just 10 will be built and they’ll cost around £350,000 ($869,000). Don’t wrap mine, I’ll eat it here.