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Places You've Never Been
  


Mario Kart has been my favorite video game since seventh grade. You’ll never replicate the game in real life, I know. But save for spinning koopa troopa shells, speed boosts and the like, you’ll come pretty close at Motorsports Racing Club in Columbiana.

If you’re more into competitive racing than video games, Owner Glenn Bomar’s description may be more enticing.

“It is the closest thing, the sensation is, to a Formula 1 race car,” he explains. “This is the most raw racing there is.”

The Motorsports Racing Club is a modern retreat on a rural stretch of highway. The half-mile long track and its nine turns are the main attraction, of course. Rental karts zip around the track at speeds approaching 50 mph, and some members’ karts top out at more than 100 mph. This is no bumper car course.

Members who store their kart at the club can call ahead to ensure their kart is gassed up and ready to go upon their arrival, like boats at a marina. “That’s our intent, to eventually be a member-driven club and a corporate-driven club,” he explains.

When they reach 200 members, the club will close to the public. Until then, anyone can experience the sensation of driving a kart that hugs the ground so closely, you feel intimately tied to the road. Computers clock your lap time and average speed per lap, allowing drivers to race against each other or against themselves. Bomar also offers endurance and team building challenges for corporate events.

I circled the track five times, adjusting to how the kart handled and examining each turn as I passed. As I traveled the back straightaway during my fourth lap, I thought I was really opening it up and gaining some speed. Then I checked my times and average speed per lap—my fastest was 23.9 mph.

Maybe my skills are limited to Mario Kart, but the Motorsports Racing Club experience is exhilarating, shameful lap times and all.

 




Shannon Hampton is so enamored with Spring Valley Beach that, during her first summer there, she spent enough to have bought season passes twice over. “It never occurred to me that you could buy a season pass,” the Guntersville resident admits.

Now four years have passed and Hampton still makes a weekly half-hour trek from her home to the Blountsville water park. Her 6-yearold son, Chandler, began counting the months till the park’s summer opening back in the fall. Chandler got his wish when Spring Valley Beach’s season opened in May. For the rest of the summer, the Hamptons will wade in the water, pack picnic lunches and meet friends for standing play dates at the park.

And at Spring Valley Beach, there’s plenty of fun to go around. Small children can splash in that shallow water or slide down a frog’s tongue and through a fish. That area of the park also offers a playground similar to what children climb on at fast food restaurants, plus water.

The fun doesn’t stop there. Smallscale slides offer a step between the baby area and the main pool. Several large water slides offer thrills for all ages.

“You’ve got teenage boys that have made a profession of waterslides,” Hampton says, and she can pick out first-time visitors because they don’t know to avoid the expert splashes those “waterslide groupies” create. Hampton has run into older relatives at the park—and many times they don’t even have grandkids in tow.

“I’ve seen grown people on some of the water slides having absolutely the time of their lives,” she recounts. It’s also easier and less expensive than maintaining a pool at home, Hampton says—a fact her husband recently pointed out when she told him they needed a pool.

“He said, ‘You know I could buy your season passes to Spring Valley Beach and pay for the gas for way cheaper,’” Hampton recalls. Besides, a home swimming pool simply wouldn’t compare to the spread at the water park.
Hampton estimates the kiddie area, alone, is twice the size of the property her house sits on.

“We’ve been a lot of places vacationing and things like that, and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a swimming pool that size in my whole life. It’s just absolutely huge. It would be like going to a football field that’s just filled with water,” she explains. “You’ll never get any idea in pictures how big it is.”

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