I’m always here for more cool motorsport projects, and one of the neatest is officially under construction near Oro, Ontario. The Oro Station Motor Circuit aims to combine a road course, a business plaza, and testing facilities to become a hub of Canadian motorsport.
It’s a really neat idea, one that aims to throw engineers, designers, and students all in the same space next to a track on which they can learn from or test their ideas. The complex is going to be littered with research and development labs, auto shops, and “artisan trade” shops that are designed to cater to everything automotive: old cars, interior, and more. And since Oro is about an hour away from Toronto, it’s a great location for millions of people to reach.
The circuit itself is 2.5 miles (or 4.1 km for you Canadians out there), and it has been designed with both modern and vintage GT racing in mind. This probably isn’t going to be a venue that hosts a series like IndyCar, NASCAR, or Formula One, but it’s still a really neat place for local residents to get a taste of racing.
There are also a few proposed track layouts. So, while you can race the full course, there are two different ways that the course can be split in half for side-by-side competing and testing.
Aside from the track itself, there will also be a dynamics pad, an irrigated skid pad, and a kick-plate in order to cover the basics of development.
My husband lives relatively close to Oro, and it’s been neat to see this project come to fruition. We’ve both been skeptical about whether it would go from idea to reality, but a groundbreaking ceremony took place on August 20, so it seems like we can start getting excited—both in terms of what Oro Station will bring motorsport-wise to the Southern Ontario community and what it’s going to do for the local automotive scene.