Closed · November 30th, 2025

How they built it

Land first

Tim Silbaugh and Tom Wettach stitched together parcels that had been coal mines and a refuse dump. The Post-Gazette, April 2003, said they’d already put nearly $7 million into assembling and fixing that ground. RacingCircuits.info calls it a 384-acre plot next to a former strip mine. Reclamation with a racing line.

Phase 1 — 2001–2003

December 2001, dirt moves. Earl Seiler runs construction. Trees to asphalt in about six months. Roadracing World, July 2002: the Wilson Circuit opened first — eight-tenths of a mile, 18 turns, built to CIK spec, sold as one of three national-grade kart plants in the country. The 1.6-mile North course followed within two weeks. Brand-new sticky mix, 36 feet wide all the way around. Alan Wilson on the elevations: real earthmoving, barriers for banks and drops, not a flattened parking lot. By 2003 the six-acre Vehicle Dynamics Area / skidpad is open. Contemporary write-ups put the first-phase bill around $6.7–7 million. Offices were trailers. The South course was already on the drawings — they talked about a 2.2-mile loop for 2004.

The pause — 2004–2010

2004: trees come down for the extra mile. A 12,000-square-foot event center goes up on the bluff over the North track. 2005: Governor Rendell’s office sends $100,000 toward the expansion. 2006: the money weather turns and the South loop stops in the dirt. 2010: Chapter 7. What you had on the hill then was a good 1.6-mile club track, a kart loop, a pad, an event center, and a dream with no pavement on the south side.

The buy — 2011

Jim and Kathy Stout were already small investors from 2002. They buy the whole place out of bankruptcy. Kathy told RACER they first liked the land. Then they decided the region needed a club track done right. They rename it Pittsburgh International Race Complex and announce a three-stage renovation at about $6 million. Timesonline, 2013: that six million is already in motion — more track, the event center finished as a real building, karting and corporate rentals added so the weekends aren’t the only revenue. President Mitch Wright’s number from that piece: 700–800 participants on a busy weekend, 2,000–3,000 people on the property. They pave the paddocks so you’re not standing in mud next to a trailer.

South Track — 2015

Twelve years after it was drawn. Marketing director Dominic Cincotta told the Times the new 1.2-mile South loop cost several million on its own. Opens Friday, July 2015. Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix cars shake it down that weekend. Natural terrain, elevation, blind curves — same Wilson idea, second verse. Bolt it to the North and you get 2.779 miles, 19 turns. Run them apart and you can hold two events at once. The Vehicle Dynamics Area gets expanded in the same renovation wave. Steel Cities SCCA writes new track records on the combined course that August because there aren’t any yet.

The 2017 plant

Both circuits come up. North is regraded and resurfaced over winter 2016–17. Jim Stout, to RACER: 16-inch concrete base under the asphalt so Pennsylvania winter doesn’t heave the racing line. They drive it themselves before they set the apex curbs. New timing and scoring building on North pit lane. New administration building. MotoAmerica needs a chicane into Turn 16 because a cliff sits behind the wall; they lay extra asphalt and extra runoff. Motorcycle full course becomes 2.781 miles / 21 turns. Everybody else keeps the original line and inherits the extra runoff.

Garages and the rest

Event center building: 155 × 44, two stories, fourteen garage stalls in that structure, two classrooms, showers both floors (official spec sheet). Separate 92 × 44 garage building, eight stalls. Kart center 50 × 44. Sixteen rentable roll-up bays split North paddock and event center, 12×12. Hot pit about 900 feet by 60 feet. Fuel 93 / 100 / 110. Doug Weaver told the paper they were still putting up new garages and paddock pavement near the end. This was not a plant they let rot.

The check

First-wave build: ~$7 million including wrecked mine ground. Stout renovation program: $6 million announced, “several million” more for South alone. Track’s own number in the Post-Gazette: Stouts put more than $15 million into the place across fourteen years. March 2026 sale: $50 million. That’s what a finished public road course on this hill was worth to someone who does not race.