A guide

Where to stay near Road Atlanta.

Hotels in Braselton, camping inside the fence, cabins in the mountains, and a villa on a private circuit an hour northwest. What each one suits, and what else is worth driving while you are up here.

Written by the owner of one villa at AMP. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or speaking for Atlanta Motorsports Park or Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.

Turn 12 onto the front straight.

The short answer

A vacation built around motorsports.

Check off the Road Atlanta event on your bucket list. Bring the car down, run it through the Appalachian roads north of Dahlonega, and make home base at Atlanta Motorsports Park, the private circuit an hour northwest. The whole family can experience world class karting and you can get on the road circuit in your own car or in something a good deal more serious. Then quiet mountain evenings, where the stars come out the way they do not at home.

The anchor

Road Atlanta.

Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta is in Braselton, an hour northeast of Atlanta and an hour southeast of AMP. Two and a half miles and twelve turns, cut out of the red Georgia clay in six months in 1970 because the Can-Am series needed somewhere to race after Bridgehampton flooded. It has been one of the great American circuits ever since, and it runs something almost every weekend of the season.

Watching

The spectator weekends

Petit Le Mans in the fall, the Mitty in spring, MotoAmerica, Drift Atlanta, the HSR historics in September. Grandstand weekends that fill every room within thirty miles.

Driving

You can drive it yourself

Club racing, HPDE and open track run most weekends through the season. SCCA, PCA, BMW CCA, NASA and a long list of independent organizers. If it would be your first one, what a first track day is like →

Several cars strung out through the esses at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, the circuit falling away and climbing out again beyond
The esses, with four cars ahead.
Turn 12

The one everybody talks about

A blind crest, then a downhill right onto the front straight with the wall and the spectator building filling the windshield. Drivers who have run everything still rate it among the hardest corners in North America.

2027

The Runoffs are coming

The SCCA National Championship Runoffs move to Road Atlanta for 2027 and 2028. A full week, several hundred competitors, crews and families from across the country.

The roads

You drove here for a reason.

North of Dahlonega the Chattahoochee National Forest starts and the road stops being straight. This is why people bring the good car rather than fly in.

Half an hour north, GA-60 runs from Dahlonega toward Morganton. Forty-two miles of smooth banked two-lane through the forest, with Wolf Mountain Vineyards on it and a Porsche collector for an owner.

The Suches loop A tall, narrow loop north of Dahlonega. GA-60 runs north through Stonepile Gap and Woody Gap to Suches, GA-180 crosses east over Wolf Pen Gap, and US-19 runs back south past Neel's Gap and Blood Mountain and Hester Gap to close the loop at Stonepile Gap. A spur runs south from Stonepile Gap to Dahlonega and on to AMP. THE SUCHES LOOP Locals call it Georgia’s Dragon. GA-60 GA-180 US-19 / 129 WOLF PEN GAP SUCHES WOODY GAP STONEPILE GAP NEEL’S GAP HESTER GAP DAHLONEGA Two Wheels of Suches Appalachian Trail crossing Blood Mountain AMP, 30 MIN
The loop, drawn for reading rather than navigating.

Ten minutes further the Suches loop starts. GA-60 up through the gaps, Wolf Pen Gap Road across the top, US-19 back down around Blood Mountain. Woody Gap, Neel’s Gap, Hester Gap and Stonepile Gap on one circuit. Two Wheels of Suches has been the meeting point since the early eighties and does lunch on weekends. Roughly forty miles of switchbacks that locals call Georgia’s Dragon.

Cell coverage is limited around Suches and through much of the loop, and the switchbacks are how people who live and work up there get around, so please drive responsibly.

Under an hour gets you GA-348, the Richard Russell Parkway, over the ridge past Brasstown Bald at 4,784 feet. Three hours gets you Deals Gap, eleven miles and 318 curves on US-129, with the Cherohala Skyway beside it. That one wants a whole day.

On the drive in

Barber

Coming from the west, Barber Motorsports Park sits just off I-20 outside Birmingham. The Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum there holds the Guinness World Record for the largest motorcycle museum, around 1,400 machines across five floors, plus what they call the world’s most extensive Lotus collection. Worth breaking the drive for.

Home base

Atlanta Motorsports Park.

Atlanta Motorsports Park is a private motorsports country club at the foot of the Blue Ridge, an hour northwest of Road Atlanta. Hermann Tilke drew the road course, two miles and sixteen turns with ninety-eight feet of elevation in it, and built tributes to Spa’s Eau Rouge and the Nürburgring Carousel into the lap. Road & Track has named it one of the Top 10 Tracks in North America. Tilke drew the kart circuit as well, and that one is open to the public. AMP is the first green, sustainable motorsports club of its kind, with the campus running on its own solar. Sitting between the mountains and the racetrack is what makes it a base rather than a stop.

Karts lined up in the staging lane at AMP Kart Racing, drivers belted in with helmets on and a marshal stepping between them, the circuit visible through the opening
The staging lane at AMP Kart Racing. No membership needed for this one.
Karting

Turn up and drive

Open to the public most of the week, year round, with no membership needed. Rental sessions, leagues and public enduros, with championship rounds through the season. A reservation is worth making when the calendar is busy. AMP sets the hours and the age and height limits, and posts them on its page.

The road course

How a visitor gets on it

AMP is a private club, so the main circuit is not open to walk-ups. You get on it by entering an event: an HPDE with Jzilla, Just Track It, Turn One or SCCA Track Night, a school with Primal Motorsports in the Radical single-seaters they run, or a supercar day with Xtreme Xperience. All of those take public entries.

Visiting members

Your membership travels

If you belong to Lime Rock, New Jersey Motorsports Park, Palmer, Autobahn, NCM, MSR Houston, The Podium Club or Rocky Mountain, you can request track time at AMP through the Member Track Network. Your card already works here.

The AMP clubhouse from the air, with the pool, fire pit, putting green and lawn laid out behind it and the circuit beyond
The clubhouse pool and grills, a short walk from the villas and open to villa guests. The gym and the indoor clubhouse are members only. Photo courtesy of Atlanta Motorsports Park.
Between sessions

Octane Wellness

An IV therapy and recovery suite on the property, bookable by anyone rather than members only. Hydration drips, vitamin injections, an oxygen bar and leg compression, which earns its place after a day in August heat.

Octane Wellness →
The campus

Sustainable by design

AMP’s panels are on the roofs of the conference center, the kart clubhouse and the garages, and they carry a good part of what the campus uses. LED lighting throughout, solar-powered cameras and signs, and ten DC fast chargers alongside eight Level 2.

Eating

Fuel Kitchen

AMP’s restaurant, on the upper floor of the kart clubhouse and open to the public Wednesday through Sunday. No membership and no reservation. Lunch without leaving the property.

Fuel Kitchen at AMP →
Winter

Open when others are shut

Warm enough here to drive through the winter, when circuits further north are closed for the season. AMP karting runs year round and Road Atlanta runs into December.

The rest of it

For everyone in the car.

Dawsonville was a moonshine town before it was a racing town. Everything here is inside half an hour of the AMP gate.

Ten minutes away, the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame is the state’s official racing museum, in the town that produced Bill and Chase Elliott. Moonshine runners’ cars, Bill Elliott’s Talladega wreck, and a room of racing simulators. The Dawsonville Pool Room is round the corner from it, and the horn goes off when an Elliott wins.

Twenty-five minutes the other way, Amicalola Falls drops 729 feet, the tallest in Georgia. Twenty zip lines, seven suspension bridges, a lodge restaurant at the top, and the Approach Trail to the southern end of the Appalachian Trail. Burt’s Farm and Uncle Shucks run through the fall, and the color up here in late October is worth planning a year around.

Drive times are approximate and depend on traffic on GA-400.

Where you sleep

Four ways to do it.

Hotels off 985 and off 400, camping inside the circuit, cabins in the mountains, and a villa an hour northwest at AMP. Each suits a different kind of trip.

Hotels

Dawsonville and Braselton

Chains near the outlets, ten or fifteen minutes from the AMP gate, and more around Braselton near Road Atlanta. Easy to book and easy on the budget. Chateau Elan, the winery resort minutes from the Road Atlanta gate, is the upmarket answer on that side.

Camping

Inside Road Atlanta

Road Atlanta has RV and tent camping on the property. If you travel with the rig, waking up inside the fence on a race morning is hard to beat.

Cabins

The mountains

North Georgia is full of them, most of them deep in the woods with a porch and a view. The right answer for a quiet few days.

A villa

Circuit Villa 29

Three levels on the outside of the Carousel at AMP, with a glass garage at track level and balconies over the road course and the kart circuit. Two bedrooms, air conditioning and a restaurant a short walk away. Waking up on a racetrack, with the comforts of home.

Atlanta Motorsports Park from the air: the road course sweeping through the foreground, the kart circuit beyond it, the Circuit Villas along the outside of the corner and the Blue Ridge on the horizon
Both circuits, the villas and the mountains behind them. Atlanta Motorsports Park, Dawsonville.

The falls, the museum, a karting session and a decent dinner fill a day on their own. So does the Suches loop. The Dragon takes longer. Come for the race and stay the week.

Circuit Villa 29 opens in early 2027.

See the villa