It’s hardly time to start planning how you’ll get to Elroy Texas for the inaugural F1 race in 2012… but if you happen to be in the area before then it would certainly be worthwhile to take a drive around the area for a look-see. You probably won’t recognize it in two more years when the track is complete… and if you’re smart you may find something interesting to invest in now.
John Kelso of the Austin Statesman newspaper asks “F1 in Elroy? What were are the odds on that?“. We asked ourselves the same thing when the announcement was made, then set out to find Elroy to see what it was all about. We only live about 40 miles away, but the town is so obscure we hadn’t been anywhere near it before. We did vaguely remember an exit from the new 130 toll road named “Elroy Road” – as it turns out that isn’t even the exit to take!
Here’s Texas from above – Elroy is located 12 miles to the southeast of Austin TX. If you plan in driving to the inaugural F1 race, you could easily drive here from Florida, Georgia, or Tennessee.
There aren’t any hotels or motels in Elroy – at least yet – and since Austin will certainly be the center of the F1 parties anyway so that is where you want to stay. If you need to be much closer to the track, but don’t mind isolation, then look at the hotels around the Airport. Be careful… by the looks of some of the motels, some probably rent by the hour.
Elroy is best found from the FM 812 exit of the toll road 130. Don’t take the Elroy Road exit, unless you want to wander around unfamilar back roads for an hour trying to find the real center of the town.
Here’s a satellite view showing the outer boundaries of the track in comparison to Elroy. If by chance you did take the Elroy exit from 130, you’ll eventually come out on FM 812 and find Wild Bubbas Wild Game Grill just to the left of intersection. While the orange pin may be the municipal center of Elroy, in reality it’s Bubbas. And that’s where you want to go for the best burger in Central Texas.
And, finally, here is the track as it is currently envisioned. Turn this image to the left 45 degrees and you can see how it fits into the satellite image above. Elroy Road is along the top, and FM812 is the large grey line at the bottom left half of the image, curving downwards.
