A drone shot over P1 Motor Club under construction just west of Port St. Lucie on Florida's Treasure Coast©2026 P1 Motor ClubTraditionally, a racetrack is little more than a remote ribbon of pavement bordered by garages and a paddock full of motor homes—purpose‑built for speed but short on comfort, community, or broader appeal. In the mid‑2000s, as high‑performance vehicle sales climbed and developers realized that premium amenities could entice a broader circle of driving enthusiasts, a new concept emerged: the private motorsport country club. These members‑only destinations are built around dedicated circuits and pair generous track access with upscale comforts such as clubhouses, storage garages, and luxury residences—much like a golf country club, only centered on driving. Today, roughly two dozen such clubs operate across the U.S., blurring the line between race circuit and resort.The latest entrant is P1 Motor Club, just west of Port St. Lucie on Florida's Treasure Coast and within easy reach of Palm Beach and Miami. Representing the new wave of ultra‑luxury track‑access models, P1 pushes motorsports firmly into the domain of curated, premium experiences rather than gritty, one‑off track days.Professional race driver and P1 Motor Club co-founder Aurora Straus and husband Kenny MurilloTo learn how P1 plans to redefine the racetrack experience, I ask Aurora Straus, professional race driver and one of the facility's co-founders, a few questions:Can you give me the 90-second elevator pitch about P1 Motor Club?"P1 Motor Club is a 650-acre luxury country club project 45 minutes north of Palm Beach, except instead of golf courses, we have over nine miles of purpose-built driving circuits. It's everything that you would come to expect from an exclusive golf or residential community in the South Florida area, except we're catering to automotive enthusiasts. Our team has designed a four-and-a-half-mile circuit to FIA Grade 2 standards, as well as a three-mile circuit called Treasure Coast, which will open in 2026. And we are building other amenities like a clubhouse, pool, sports courts, and trackside real estate available for purchase exclusively by members… so, it is just like a country club.AdvertisementAdvertisement"There are two primary things about P1 that set us apart."One: we are built by racers and for racers. We view the tracks as our north star — to build the most extraordinary new racetracks in the world we possibly can. And then the country club, the amenities, and the real estate are built around that racetrack. Most projects take the opposite approach: the real estate comes first, and the track is fit in around it."Second, we are a family business full of people that have done this twice now, and we are truly doing it for the love of the sport and of luxury hospitality. My parents and I are going into this with the mindset that we want it to be a multi-generational family business for us and other owners."Private motor sports clubs are historically, and by design, very exclusive. What opportunities will there be for the public or for outside organizations, such as regional car clubs or track day groups, to rent or use the facility? And how do you see that fitting into the club's overall vision?"If you look at the overall site map of our 650-acre property, you'll notice that the east side of the property, surrounding the P1 circuit, is much more member-centric in terms of the infrastructure we're putting there. The members' real estate, the clubhouse, things like the pool, all of that is going to be on the east side.AdvertisementAdvertisement"The west side of the property that we're developing now, the Treasure Coast Motorsports Complex, is designed to accommodate things on a semi-private basis long-term. Member track time will always come first for us, but to the extent that it makes sense for us to host car clubs in the future — things like corporate events, driving experiences for individuals, or external track rentals for manufacturers – most of that will be happening on Treasure Coast."Our team has extensive experience building and operating private clubs. There's a thriving car community across St. Lucie County and South Florida more broadly, and the community has struggled as many public-access racetracks have closed in the last 10 to 15 years. We're actively supportive of any other projects that pop up in that area and provide more public access than we can, and that's near and dear to a lot of our internal team because a lot of us grew up going to tracks like those."Rendering of some of the trackside residences at P1 Motor ClubP1 Motor Club is being positioned as more than just a traditional racing venue. What specific gaps in the motorsports ecosystem was the team striving to solve?"Since 2008 or so, dozens of groups in Florida have proposed projects of this size and scale — so the demand has clearly been there for a long time, and we feel very fortunate to be the ones who get to build it here in Port St Lucie. We were solving a specific problem in Florida and a broader one across North America."Florida drivers already have access to incredible public tracks like Sebring and Daytona, plus some great private clubs. What the region hasn't had is a private club built at this scale, on a site chosen specifically for it. Our 650-acre greenfield property meant we could design exactly the racetrack we wanted, rather than adapting a track to fit the land.AdvertisementAdvertisement"In North America more broadly, when we say 'most ambitious' we're really talking about the racetracks themselves. Look up the simulator video of the four-and-a-half- mile P1 circuit and show it to anyone from an amateur driver to an F1 person, and the reaction is the same: they've never seen anything like it. We spent years designing it and were very particular about getting feedback from actual drivers."So, when I say built by racers, for racers, I mean that quite literally."Ground broke on P1 Motor Club in March 2025, and the team hasn't lifted off the throttle since. The first paved circuit is slated to open this fall, with additional layouts—and the long‑form P1 Circuit—following later in the year or in early 2027. Early members receive Charter Licenses, granting them and their immediate families elevated privileges: unlimited track access; full use of the clubhouse, gym, pool, spa, pickleball courts, biking trails, and dog park; and priority for trackside real estate, including garage townhomes and residences.As the general automotive industry experiments with self-driving technology intent on removing the driver from the act of driving, P1 Motor Club leans hard in the opposite direction—creating a unique motorsport community where enthusiasts can continue celebrating the passion and competitive edge that only a human behind the wheel can deliver. For driving enthusiasts, that's a future deserving of embracing.AdvertisementAdvertisementThis article was originally published on Forbes.com