Not Your Average Country Club
Autobahn Country Club features a 3-mile long race track.
Nov. 1, 2007— -- During the week, Amy Wittkamper lives the life of a suburban mom.
"It's probably as mundane and ordinary as you can imagine," she said as she and her two sons filled the trunk of her SUV with groceries. "I get up in the morning, get the kids to school, then do my daily errands."
But on the weekends, Wittkamper likes to unwind at the country club. But Wittkamper's club has no golf course, no tennis courts -- just a 3-mile race track with 21 hairpin turns.
Wittkamper spends weekends harnessed behind the wheel of her custom BMW, helmet on, careening around the curves at 140 miles per hour.
"When I'm out here, I don't even know who I'm chasing," she explained, beaming. "If I can catch them, wow, it's a thrill."
Wittkamper is a member of the Autobahn Country Club in Joliet, Ill.
The private race course located in the middle of a corn field is the brainchild of former insurance salesman Mark Basso. Spend five minutes with him, and you'll become aware of his uncanny affinity for cars. Basso knows the roars of their engines the same way a mother recognizes her baby's voice.
"It's a Ferrari, red. I really don't need to see it," he said.
Sure enough, a red Ferrari growls behind him on the track.
For Basso, building the country club is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.
"When I was younger, my parents belonged to a golf country club. I used to go there and think, 'This is great, but I'd like to drive my Trans Am down the fairways,'" he said.
Now Basso drives his custom Porsche around his club's manicured grounds, smiling broadly as he says, "This is Disneyland for gear-heads."
The country club is still a work in progress. Construction crews hammer away at the walls of a track-side condo complex. There are also plans to build a pool.
Membership costs $35,000 dollars.
"It's amazing," Basso said. "We had over a hundred members before we opened the doors. Now we have over 365 members."
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