The Legend of Hedge Hollow: Why you should race th...

The Myths, the Legends

Rumors abound about Hedge Hole Raceway’s existence, the way it got here to be and its goal. Is it an Illuminati playground? Does Bigfoot cover there? Or is it a testing floor for UAP or secret authorities know-how?

We determined to danger having the boys in black exhibiting up at our doorstep by channeling our inside Fox Mulder, as a result of, in any case, the reality is on the market.

Hedge Hole Raceway is simply an hour southeast of Kansas Metropolis, Missouri. You get off exit 141 on I-49 for Adrian, Missouri. Inhabitants 1730. Shortly the surroundings turns from small-town America into one thing extra paying homage to the cartoon sequence “Braveness the Cowardly Canine.”

“You wind your method by means of all these farms, and also you go, ‘Man, the place is that this place?’” one supply who wished to stay nameless stated. “Then, unexpectedly, you see this fence. The fence simply retains going. It seems to be like a secret authorities set up.

“Ultimately you come to an unmarked gate,” he continued. “The day we went there, some man was standing there. However after I went up there for a take a look at day, there was no person.”

“So how did you get in?” I requested. “Did they need to scan your retinas?”

Our supply sounded nervous.

“I needed to key in a code after which the gate opened up,” he stated.

Then a world, completely in contrast to the seemingly countless fields of corn and soybeans, appeared earlier than him.

“You roll in and there’s an enormous facility,” he recalled. “There’s a giant paddock in entrance of many garages. There’s loads of room to do plenty of issues, however they don’t, as a result of it’s personal. Not personal in that there’s membership. There’s just one member. The proprietor.”

So far as the precise monitor, one other supply supplied his take.

“The whole lot you see on the monitor seems to be acquainted in a imprecise race monitor language form of method,” he stated. “It feels such as you’ve entered one other dimension. The whole lot you have a look at tells you it’s a giant deal of a race monitor, however you may’t place it. It’s by no means been on TV. I felt like I’d been dropped into this mysterious place that seems like a full-on European Formulation 1 monitor, besides the panorama doesn’t look notably European.”

As you drive the course, the place turns into much more surreal.

“You’re like, ‘This has so many alternative parts of tracks you’ve pushed prior to now, and a few of it feels acquainted, a few of it doesn’t,’” our third supply stated. “When you can’t see into the monitor, you may’t see past it both. It swallows you up into this nice motorsports world.”

The Actuality

Sadly, our investigation didn’t yield any cryptids, alien know-how or Illuminati ties. (Let’s face it, we most likely would have been killed if we did.)

Nonetheless, we did uncover one heck of a race monitor with a narrative behind it. Our conversations result in the supervisor of Hedge Hole Raceway, Nick Saleh, and finally the monitor proprietor himself, David Dehaemers.

David, as you will have ascertained, did properly for himself in life. His cash got here from the vitality sector, however he has humble roots. David grew up at his father’s auto salvage yard. Whereas David has a set that features a number of forms of McLarens and Corvettes, he nonetheless has the one new automotive his father purchased, a 1971 Corvette, which has simply 11,000 miles on it.

“I grew up round vehicles,” David stated. “I’ve been lucky sufficient to do properly financially, so I began shopping for nicer and quicker vehicles. I didn’t have wherever to run them. I didn’t wish to spend time going someplace and hauling them throughout in all places simply to run quick. I used to be capable of decide up some land. The unique thought was simply to place some pavement down and have one thing [where] I may go quicker than on the freeway and never fear about hurting anyone else or getting a ticket. The subsequent factor I knew, I used to be constructing a race monitor.”

Venture creep. It’s as actual as for David together with his monitor as it’s for somebody with a Lemons automotive.

David enlisted the providers of race monitor architect Alan Wilson. You might acknowledge a few of his work: Autobahn Nation Membership, GingerMan Raceway and Barber Motorsports Park. David stated he didn’t take inspiration from any specific monitor, however he needed to have a European-style highway course since he grew up a fan of three-time F1 champ Sir Jackie Stewart.

Hedge Hole Raceway consists of a 3.5-mile highway course with as much as 5 completely different configurations. It gives a little bit of every thing, and lots of racers rave in regards to the circulation of the monitor.

“It’s all in regards to the format,” SCCA’s Heyward Wagner stated. “The velocity of the corners and the circulation of the corners are very well put collectively. There are plenty of locations the place you’ve obtained the automotive in a sequence of corners for a big period of time, so that you’re continually working the automotive by means of the course, but it has actually nice straightaways.”

Moreover, it’s forgiving. The monitor exceeds the FIA Grade 3 laws.

“There’s runoff there–it’s improbable,” Adam Spence, director of product improvement for HP Tuners, stated. “It’s not like another tracks the place I ponder what may occur if I had been to place two wheels off and find yourself in a precarious place. I by no means consider that at Hedge Hole. I can simply take pleasure in driving, benefit from the surroundings and revel in hanging out within the paddock.”

Security is paramount at Hedge Hole. Regardless of being a non-public monitor, it was one of many first to implement the MyLaps X2 Race Management system. It options full monitor video protection, with a number of displays in race management, GPS monitoring and digital flagging stations.

Facilities? Twenty-plus garages, with washers, dryers and full bogs in addition to leisure suites with kitchens on the second story.

Floor broke on Hedge Hole Raceway in 2018, and shortly thereafter David began monitoring his vehicles. Nonetheless, he began to consider the sector of goals he constructed.

“I believe there can be different individuals who want to take pleasure in it,” David stated. “I do have some annual prices that though I may help by myself, it doesn’t damage to produce other folks assist generate just a little little bit of income to defer the prices. I’m undoubtedly, at this level, not creating wealth on the venture, however that wasn’t actually ever the intention. I needed to share it and have folks take pleasure in it, as a result of I do assume it’s form of enjoyable–and there’s lots of people who wish to do this sort of factor.”

Notably, Hedge Hole Raceway didn’t go together with a members-only mannequin for simply the properly heeled. Whereas folks can definitely pay to hire out the monitor, Hedge Hole Raceway prefers to host larger teams, like NASA and SCCA.

“I belong to a golf membership,” David stated. “I do know that in the event you’ve obtained 200 members, you’ve obtained 200 completely different views of how the greens should be like. I don’t wish to take care of that. I’ve obtained sufficient occurring in my life that I don’t need to be working a membership.”

It was the persistence of NASA MidAmerica Area’s Donna and Randy Lane that made David think about opening up the monitor for others.

“The story is that she parked her automotive on the gate and waited for one in every of our guys to come back over,” monitor normal supervisor Nick Saleh remembered. “She stated, ‘I wish to come out right here. Right here’s some data.’ We gave her a name and had her workforce out.”

That opened the door for NASA and different teams to come back out, together with Hooked On Driving Midwest, Xtreme Xperience and One Lap of America. SCCA now has a Monitor Evening in America scheduled for May 1.

What began as only a resolution for one automotive man to go quick together with his vehicles has blossomed right into a vacation spot for a lot of different automotive folks. It’s left David considering different makes use of for the attractive facility.

“I don’t see us being a CoTA or something like that,” David stated. “I believe again to among the California tracks, the place they’d individuals who love the game doing it. Ultimately they morphed into one thing larger, the place they’d sanctioned races. I may see that occuring with us someday. It will not be in my lifetime, however I’d wish to see IMSA run there sometime or one thing like that.”

That would definitely require upgrades for spectators, however the potential of that occuring is actual. David’s not solely a dreamer, however he’s clearly a doer. And simply assume: His ardour for vehicles began out at 4 years outdated at his father’s salvage yard. And earlier than his father handed away in 2022, David obtained to take him across the monitor.

“We drove round and I believe he thought it was cool,” David recalled. “I believe he thought I used to be just a little loopy for spending the form of cash I used to be on it … however I believe he did prefer it. Right this moment would have been his 89th birthday, and I miss him.”

Hedge Hole Raceway was a labor of affection for David, but it surely may additionally stand out as a testomony to the eagerness for vehicles instilled in him by his father, David Sr., and there’s completely no thriller about that.