New England Region is excited to announce it has a secured a new site/venue for it’s RallyCross events. A huge thanks goes out to Scott Carlson and Phil LaMoreaux for all of their hard work over the last year to make this happen.
And it has taken a full year. The new site is at Glove Hollow Christmas Tree Farm in Plymouth, NH. About a year ago, Phil connected Scott with the owner, Mike Ahern. Mike’s property is on the west bank of the Pemigewasset River just south of the town of Plymouth and is comprised of forested land, a Christmas tree plantation (75,000 Fraser and balsam fir), and an open field for hay.
The first step was a site visit. “I spent a few hours walking with him last fall to look at possibilities for where on the property we could put a course and he’s got a couple options there,” Scott explained.
Option 1: The first field was large and bowl shaped; it’s a depression that was carved out of the earth by the Pemi a long time ago and has a tendency to accumulate water and not drain well due to the very shallow water table. It is also about half bare soil and half grasses that will put up with inferior soil conditions. Since NH has had a bunch of rain recently, the decision was made to use another field.
Option 2: This is where our first event will be held. This location is a bit higher up from the river, has a little elevation/contour to it, but is mostly a flat hay field with a thick cover of grass and a healthy root system. While it isn’t as large as the first field, the ground will surely hold up better than option 1, simply due to the decent vegetation cover. The soil seems to be mostly clayey loam, which we don’t really get to use much these days for RX in New England. There should be very few rocks, if any, but we’ll see what shows up under the hay layer. There’s also a runway for RC airplanes that used to fly at the farm years ago that we’ll be using.
“I’m really excited to see how this pans out,” Scott concluded. “We’ve been looking to find a site in the Plymouth, NH area for some time now and this has the chance to be a really positive thing for both NER Rallycross and Glove Hollow Christmas Tree Farm.” The site is only a few minutes off the I-93 exits for Ashland to the south or Plymouth/ Holderness to the north. Both exits have fuel, food and lodging options. “I’m hoping this becomes a regular stop on the NER RX calendar but we need a well attended event to make this financially viable for both parties involved.”
You know what that means – get your cars ready and REGISTER.
